The wonderful Makhunik Village

Extracted from Rasekhoon
The common point of all villages with anthropological characteristics is their cultural richness, but the main difference between Makhunik and all other villages is another thing. The inhabitants of Makhunik have reached all these achievements in comparison to people of Abyaneh, Masouleh and other villages despite poverty and hard living conditions.
The great Lut plain and its unique landscapes along the hilly mountains of the northeast of South Khorasan can be the only safe shelter of those who intend to find a way out of the city's noise and sit and watch the history and the nature of this region for a while.
The old contexts of Khosf, the monuments of Sarbisheh, windmills of Nehbandan and old Birjand gardens are waiting for the steps of the spring passengers to break the silence ruling on the desert and sit down to hear the history of this place.
Today's destination is the amazing village of Makhunik, which attracts researchers, anthropologists and archaeologists every year to the village. This village is considered a wonderful village due to its people with special characteristics, lifestyle and customs.
● Cultural richeness; peasants' common point
The common point of all villages with anthropological characteristics is their cultural richness, but the main difference between Makhunik and all other villages is another thing. In comparison to Abyaneh, Masouleh and other villages, the inhabitants of Makhunik have reached all these achievements despite poverty and difficult living conditions. Makhunik is located in eastern Iran and in the newly established Sarbisheh city in southern Khorasan province. In the plain of the same name, which consists of 12 villages and Makhunik is the largest and probably the oldest of them, and the people believe that all of these villages are divided from Makhunik, they are in principle from same clan and are related to each other.
Makhunik is 143 km from Birjand (province’s capital) and 78 km from Sarbisheh is surrounded by mountains and hills. The village was comprised of 106 households and 503 people in the 1996 census. The main job of the people is farming, while all agricultural lands do not reach 4 hectares, and besides this amount of land is owned by other villages, because the 4 hectares are scattered on three fields, and most of the villagers and villages around are involved in ownership of all of these fields. For example, a 1.7 hectare farm, which is the main and one of the largest farms in the countryside, has more than 100 households.
Therefore, there are 100 m2 of land on Makhunik's farm, but this is not the end of the story, because in the Makhunik they have good and bad fields which is why the farm has been divided into several parts and each section is separately divided and owned by everyone and again at the time of the inheritance of the land, in order to preserve all rights, they divide each kart individually between the heirs. In short, the karts have been divided so much by the frontier and in recent decades with stones that many of them are not bigger than 2 square meters! Of course, a square meter field is also found! There are also karts that have multiplicity of owners so they cultivate 2 or 3 types of things!
● One-hundred-years old laws
In general, everything is governed by specific rules and regulations. The division of land, the division of the product of ownership on the rangelands, the ownership of residential lands, animal husbandry, social regulations and many other matters, which are none without rules, are laws that have been in force since hundreds of years ago, and no one has the ability to change them, and the laws of urbanization and Modern civilization also have not been able to influence them.
All residents adhere to these regulations without officers or any weapon force. Ownership disputes, the main conflict among the villagers, are rarely seen in Makhunik.
In the years of drought, by cooperation and again with observance of regulations, landowners are involved in the cultivation and sharing of land, and there is a guardian in every discipline and everywhere, whose promise is reliable for others, even for those who oversee other matters.
Makhunik village housing is also remarkable and, in some cases, wonderful. Makhunik village houses have no particular dimension and are usually not rectangular.
To build a house in this part, because there was less flat ground, they flattened slope of the hill. In some places, houses are grounded in alleys and at the highest level, the height of the houses does not exceed 1.5 meters. In the past, in order to close 60 to 80 centimeters doors, they used a number of bushes that were tied together, and when they went inside, they led bushes to the openings to protect them from the cold of the winter.
● The houses of man or sitting house
Later, the doors were made from a trunk of a tree and without a nail as a piece, and some of them are still in the old tissue. To keep winds from the north and northwest and the use of sunlight in homes, door of hoses generally open to the south. The walls of houses are made with rocks and mud and the ceiling is covered by the trunk of local trees and bushes. The roofs of the houses are mostly oval and water closet of houses are made of stone. Typically, in a number of non-framed rooms, there was only one room used by the person who was sitting at that house, called house of the man or sitting house. This house, which covers an area of 10 to 15 square meters is for living, sleeping, cooking, barley and wheat storage, a knitting workshop and a guest room and other rooms, some of which are small, are used for keeping animals and storing forage and beets.
Important factors in the formation of rural housing are natural, economic and religious factors. Although it is impossible to distinguish between rural cultural signs, but the Makhunik village housing is more than food and clothing, and even many other cultural signs, and they need more consideration.
There are no special architectures in the Makhunik village, and at first glance, there is no interesting thing to consider. By more analysis we can see impressive differences in context and other buildings of the village with other villages.
The Makhunik village is a totally integrated village and a multitude built on the slopes of Makhunik Mountains. Roughness of the ground, security issues, relationships, and climatic conditions are the factors that led the village be small and integrated.
In terms of security issues, according to the Uzbek invasion in the past, Makhunik has been hiding in the hills. The old context of the village was built on a hillside and houses were made densely and in a hollow area, so that the village has not been seen in any way from inside the river that had been used in the past. Even their initial position that was nearby the fountain and the qanat have been densely hidden in the mountains and hills that it is quoted during the Turkmen, a dog barked and showed their location to the enemy. Otherwise, despite closeness of the houses to the path the village was hidden from them.
Kinship has also been influential in the context of the village. According to the social rules of the village, each individual in addition to owning their house, owns the front area of his house, and apart from his family and relatives, no one has the right to build a house in front of his house, which creates a relationship between the village context and kinship of the people.
In terms of climatic conditions, due to the severe cold of winter and the lack of materials, the houses are built in the ground and tightly together to reduce the severity of the wind and thus the winter's cold is overcome.
The village is located on three hills and along two waterways extending from the north to the south. The village tower has been built in the ancient village context and on top of the village with rocks and mud, which natives sheltered in it in the times of insecurity.
The core of the village is built on the north to west, southwest, and northeast side of the tower, and the mosque is located in the middle of the core. In the middle context, the village has progressed more to north-east and west. In recent years, much of the village's progress has been towards east and southeast.
These are just a brief description of the natural and historical attractions of this province; certainly, not only in this province, but in all of Iran's provinces, hundreds of attractions can be defined in this form, such as Masuleh and Abyaneh, the way for domestic tourists can be paved. But what is certain is that such a heritage will not go a long way without targeted, long-term, and dynamic plans.