Crafting Markets

The fragrance of herbs mixes with that of freshly sewn linen and felt, and wafts over Voronezh’s central Nikitinskaya Square. Curious passersby poke their heads in and find a busy craft fair, populated with handmade cloth dolls and house spirits, some stuffed with mint, thyme or oregano. Cheburashka and Baba Yaga stare out at visitors from booths, while wool mittens, gloves, scarves and shawls sprawl across other stall tables, and dresses folk and modern, to say nothing of pinafores, and shirts, hang from still others.

Some 54 Russian companies and designers from 27 regions had descended on this provincial city square to show off some of the best of what is being made by (mostly) small craft producers in the textile, clothing and footwear industries. Sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, this is the sixth annual Russia-wide fair of clothing, footwear, and textiles. It is a traveling affair, and has previously visited St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, and Yaroslavl.

“This is the first time something like this has taken place in our city,” said Yulia Galkina, a Voronezh city official tasked with business development. “Undoubtedly, it will encourage further trade fair cooperation between Voronezh and the Federal Ministry.”

The goals of the fairs is twofold: to support domestic manufacturers, and to provide citizens with quality goods at an affordable cost. An added bonus: they also show how some of the items are produced, through demonstrations and workshops.

“Our town could be called ‘goatville,’” jokes Valentina Tarasova, a master knitter from Voronezh Oblast’s Novokhopersk, “because everybody knits. Everybody!”

Tarasova is at the fair to represent the Novokhopersk Artel [an artel is a Russian collective or cooperative of artists or craftspeople]. “In the old days, kids started knitting at the age of six,” she says. “Now, of course, it’s later. You understand, many kids are beginning to lose interest in making things with their hands. Some of them consider it old-fashioned.”

Tarasova discusses and demonstrates many parts of the production process to visitors during a workshop: from raising goats and shearing their wool, to washing it, drying it, carding it, and going through all the tedious and difficult steps to spin it into yarn.

“Handmade! Truly handmade!” a passerby says, “This is priceless these days!”

But even large-scale textile plants make beautiful things, like the famous Orenburg shawl-making enterprise, whose head, Nina Yelmanova, herself came to the fair to show and sell the company’s shawls.

“The patterns you see on our towels, shirts, and dresses are Russian folk designs we have taken from old books that we seek out wherever we travel,” says Yelena Orlova, of Stesha Crafts Studio, from Sharya, in Kostroma Oblast.

There are pigeons for those just married, roosters to symbolize wealth, and the Firebird to represent happiness.

“Tiny, barely noticeable details can be different in different parts of Russia,” Orlova explains. “For example, in Kostroma and in Voronezh... Do you see this symbol? As a matter of fact, it can still be found on verandahs of old houses and huts in Russia. It’s the star of the Virgin Mother. Sometimes people come to me and say that some of our work seems Scandinavian. One time, a woman from India interested in embroidery designs as a historian pointed to some of our work and asked, ‘Why have you taken our Indian patterns?’ And when we compared them in books, we realized that, in fact, many of our [two countries’ designs] do look quite a bit alike. We smiled in understanding that the Earth delivered lots of similar things and scattered them in different parts of the world.”

Orlova adds that she and her husband are saddened whenever they see young people wearing ripped jeans. She insists that they lose energy through the holes.

“A century ago, say, there was a reason that Russians wore long dress trousers with not a single hole in them,” Orlova continues. “It was believed that one could get sick in the part of the body where there was a hole. The same with lace along the bottom or sleeve of clothing. It was supposed to provide extra defense.”

“We felt our goods using only natural wool – no chemicals,” says Marina Kosenkova, a felt master from Bobrov in Voronezh Oblast. She was representing Tsarstvo Shersti (“The Kingdom of Wool”). “Valenki have always been traditional Russian winter footwear. These days, there are, unfortunately, not so many people who wear them as in old times. Nevertheless, our craft is alive and not going to die – I am sure of that.”

Kosenkova says that her grandparents, as well as her parents and relatives, were and are felting valenki. For decoration, they use embroidery or paint. Their craft is growing and developing, she says, because there are not many companies left in Russia practicing this rare art.

For the most part, the craftspeople at the fair were optimistic about the future of Russian textiles and their small-scale production companies. Larisa Zapara, from Beryozovsky, near Yekaterinburg, knits in very bright colors and has an upbeat spirit to match. She argues that creativity and originality, combined with self-confidence, are the keys to a successful business. “Don’t wring your hands, don’t agonize, just move forward from what’s inside you, and you’ll achieve happiness. The day will come when your audience and your customers will come running.”