How the Orenburg Down Shawl Was Born. Its History, Present and the Future of the Down Craft.

The Orenburg down shawl has been a symbol of the Orenburg region and of Russia for more than a century. It is customary to bring it back as a souvenir from our steppe region, and to give it to guests. The down shawl is a work of folk art into which soul and all one's skill have been put; perhaps that is also why it is so warm and gentle. Do you want to know how it all began? How the processes of the origin, formation and development of the down-knitting craft went? What is the state of down knitting today? We will gladly share all the information with you!

Who first thought of combing goats and knitting down items from their down, and when?

It all began more than two centuries ago.

There are several legends about this. The first is that shepherds grazed their flocks of goats, raising and feeding them for milk, meat and wool. They knew nothing about the down. Cossack settlers, talking to the shepherds, casually remarked that the goats were dirty and uncombed. And they offered their help. "We'll comb your goats for you, and we'll even take away everything we comb out." The shepherds marvelled at such willingness to help and let them comb the goats. But this trick worked only once. The following spring, the Cossacks already had to exchange the combed-out down for food, because the shepherds had seen through the Cossacks' "selflessness". Since then, the shepherds began combing the goats every spring and exchanging the down for money and food. And the Cossacks acquired goats of their own.

According to the second legend, the far-sighted herders guessed to use goat down themselves. And the Cossacks were amazed at how the Kalmyks and Kazakhs did not freeze in such bitter frost, riding their black horses lightly dressed. Then they looked more closely at the horsemen and realised it was all about the padded vests and scarves they wore under their outerwear. These garments had only one function – to retain heat and keep their owner warm. They were far from today's beautiful openwork shawls. They warmed harsh men rather than adorning fragile female shoulders. Again, the Cossacks found out that goat down was used and bred their own goats on their smallholdings.

And it was the Cossack women, not burdened with farming or much of a smallholding, who began knitting the first openwork shawls from goat down. The properties of Orenburg goat down gave the Cossack women the idea of creating a purely female item of clothing. After all, when spun, the down was incredibly fine and soft; linen and wool could not compare with it. Just as softly and easily, the down thread fell into patterns of incredible beauty.

 How did the down craft originate?

Geographically, the birthplace of the down-knitting craft is the village of Zheltoye in the Saraktash District of the Orenburg Region. It was there that the first openwork gossamer shawl!

came off the needles of Cossack women. The Cossacks had been resettled to the Southern Urals to guard the state border. And their families – wives, children, the elderly – were resettled with them. While the Cossacks did military service, the rest of the family stayed at home. They were not used to farming. But the Cossack women were skilled in needlework and knew lace-making and embroidery. That is when they began breeding those very goats and knitting shawls from their down. The patterns of the first down shawls were based on motifs of nature. The boundless Orenburg steppe, frost patterns on windows, clusters of rowan berries.

On winter evenings, sitting by a burning splinter, women knitted shawls of stunning beauty. At first it was a source of extra income, and then, when the shawls came into demand, it turned into the main source of income.

The experience of the first down knitters was passed from mother to daughter. The skill was honed and perfected. Did they know they stood at the origins of a legend? That their shawls would shine at exhibitions in Paris and London? That they would become known all over the world? Hardly; they simply had to feed their children, so they knitted.

The down shawl conquers the world

Visiting the Orenburg lands in the 1760s, Pyotr Ivanovich Rychkov – researcher and discoverer of the Orenburg region – was the first to pay attention to the goats, their down and its features. Pyotr Ivanovich was among the first to take an interest in the goats which "near the Yaik, and especially on the Zayaitsk steppe, occur in herds and are so swift that no dog can catch them". He talked to the herdsmen, appreciated the samples of down items and proposed opening a down-knitting craft!

And Rychkov's wife, Alyona Denisovna, was so taken with the idea of creating a down-knitting craft that she began working on the matter herself. Many Cossack women gathered at the Rychkovs' house, learning the new skill and honing their abilities. One day Alyona Denisovna took a white down shawl with her to the capital. And it conquered the capital. The down knitters of the Orenburg Governorate were given an official commendation, and Alyona Denisovna was awarded a medal.

This state of affairs encouraged the Cossack women, and they began learning the craft more eagerly than ever, inventing new patterns and knitting techniques.

In 1851, at the first World Exhibition in London, Europeans first became acquainted with Orenburg down items. Naturally, the shawls received attention and awards.

Already at the beginning of the 19th century, the French – the trendsetters of fashion – declared the down shawl a fashionable accessory, an addition to an outfit. In 1857, at the Paris International Exhibition, everyone was amazed and delighted by Orenburg down shawls.

In 1858, Orenburg craftswomen were awarded a Large Silver Medal for their shawls at an exhibition in Brussels.

And in 1862, shawls from the Russian provinces shone at the second World Exhibition in London! Knitted by the Cossack woman Maria Nikolaevna Uskova, they won the hearts of the prim English and others. The governor granted Maria Nikolaevna's petition to take part in the exhibition in England, and the craftswoman sent six of her shawls to the exhibition. All of them were bought up immediately as soon as the exhibition ended. The craftswoman received a medal "For a shawl of goat down", a diploma and 125 silver pieces!

In 1897, at the exhibition in Chicago, Orenburg down shawls earned well-deserved medals.

At the Moscow exhibition of art industry in 1882, 6 shawls from the Orenburg region were also presented. 2 of them received special attention and a cash reward – the shawls of M.N. Uskova and N.R. Vladimirova – 100 roubles each. Ordinary shawls then cost from 18 to 35 roubles! Penza shawls could not compare with Orenburg ones; they too were made of goat down, but the workmanship fell short.

Later, Orenburg down shawls became regular participants and favourites of international exhibitions: World Exhibitions in Canada in 1967 and in Japan in 1968, international fairs in Algeria in 1969, Syria in 1975, Greece in 1976, France in 1977, England in 1979, Spain in 1981, India in 1982 and Germany in 1985.

It should be noted that the leading world powers were sometimes interested not in the down shawls but in the goat down itself. Enterprising Americans tried to breed Orenburg goats at home. They bought them in the Orenburg Governorate and took them to their home countries – England, Australia, France, South America. But half the goats died on the way, and the other half did not produce, in the new climatic conditions, the valuable undercoat for which they had been transported. It turned out that weather conditions are the decisive factor in forming goat down with its unique properties.

Then the English and French decided to export the raw material. In 1824, the French firm "Bodier" knitted shawls called "kasha". The English firm "Lipner and Kon" from Birmingham produced shawls at its enterprise labelled "imitation of Orenburg".

But still the most worthy and high-quality shawls were knitted on Orenburg land. And they still are!

The Orenburg Governorate – the cradle of down knitting

In the 1870s, no more than 300 women did down knitting. But the shawl was gaining such popularity that it was foolish not to knit it if you could! Demand creates supply, as they say. And in 1900 there were already 4,000 knitters. In 1913, 21,000 men and women knitted shawls for sale. In 1915 the first Cossack down artel appeared!

The second half of the 1920s was marked by an important step for down knitting – the need to mechanise the down knitters' work became acute. And in 1930, on the outskirts of Orenburg, the first down-knitting factory in the Union, named after the First of May, began operating! The creation of the factory was mainly intended to make the shawls produced cheaper. Because the softness and fluffiness of handmade items could not be recreated by any machines! At the factory, the down was still combed and spun by hand, and the openwork border was also knitted by craftswomen. The knitting of the shawl's centre was mechanised. Every month the factory gave the country 288 shawls, 80 openwork and the rest warm ones. A quality standard for the factory item appeared – the down thread must be of one thickness and the colour of the down must be uniform.

However, the mechanisation of down knitting did not take place on the basis of this factory. It happened on the basis of the small but very ambitious "Paris Commune artel". It was from this artel that today's Down Shawl Factory grew. The young women started by knitting socks and mittens from down waste. They moved on to shawls. They mastered the machines and worked out how to knit the border on them too. In short, they increased the output of down items many times over! Down knitting did not stop even during the War; the contribution of the knitters to our victory is also hard to overestimate. In 1955 the artel produced as many as 20,800 shawls! The Orenburg down shawl became an unrivalled work of all-Russian significance! In 1960 the artel was renamed the Factory. The new factory building was built in 1966, and the factory is still on this site, on Raskovoy Street.

Today all processes at the factory are automated. And while a craftswoman knits one shawl by hand in 250 hours, the factory produces more than 20 of them in one shift! In 2004, the 50-millionth shawl was knitted

Of course, with the appearance of down-knitting machines, there were fewer down knitters. Because machine production lowered the cost of the items, and considerably. Handmade down items took longer to knit and cost more. But how beautiful and fine handmade shawls are, how much love and warmth is put into them! Shawls for true connoisseurs are still knitted only by hand today.

Down knitting today

Of course, not everything has gone smoothly in the history of down knitting. After the colossal rise of the down industry, its decline and even crisis began in the turbulent 1990s. Demand for down items fell. However, in recent years the Government of the Orenburg Region has been doing a lot to revive the centuries-old traditions of down knitting! Funds have been created, events are held, money is allocated, and fakes are being fought.

So, for six years now, since 2009, "Orenburg Down Shawl Days" have been celebrated in October. The events usually include exhibitions, flash mobs, festive and competition programmes.

This is a regional holiday; the need to hold it is enshrined in a Governor's Decree. The aim of the festival is to revive national traditions, support Orenburg down knitters and instil in the younger generation the much-needed love for the history of their native region.

The most beautiful event is the campaign held on the Feast of the Intercession; it is called "On Intercession Day, put on a shawl". On this day men are encouraged to give, and women to wear, snow-white shawls.

On 13 October 2013, as part of the festival, a world down-knitting record was set – 699 knitters (women, men and even children) took up their needles at the same time. Knitters who had come from all over the region, so different but united by one common idea and a beloved occupation, each knitted their own piece of goat down simultaneously for 5 minutes!

On 12 November 2015, the Centre of Folk Artistic Crafts was ceremonially opened in Orenburg. It is a new, ultra-modern home of the Orenburg down shawl. Everything related to down knitting is gathered under one roof – history and the present day, production technology, craftswomen's secrets, yarn, patterns, the down knitters themselves, both experienced and beginners, museums and galleries – over an area of 23,000 m²!

The appearance and development of online shops certainly contributes to the spread and development of the Orenburg down shawl all over the world and to the development and support of down knitters. Every day they prove through their work that the craft has not died out on Orenburg land and that the shawl only becomes more beautiful year by year!

All that remains is to choose a reliable online shop and an item in it! And become the owner of a shawl that truly comes from Orenburg, of excellent quality.