Barashi

Barashi

 

(from Arabic, farrash, “craftsman who makes beds”), craftsmen in ancient Rus’ who made tents for princes.

The barashi are mentioned in 14th- and 15th-century ecclesiastical and princely contractual deeds. In the 17th and early 18th centuries the barashi were court craftsmen; they lived in Moscow in a settlement beyond the Pokrovskii gates (the Barashevskaia settlement).