Books about the Orenburg Down Shawl. The Shalnoy Orenburg Library

Our company has its own library collection. And this collection is regularly added to. Our staff are constantly looking for new publications and new information. Among the items in our own small library there are very valuable, truly rare publications containing useful and reliable information about the Orenburg down shawl, both historical and quite practical.

Among our books there are both rare and modern examples. The books contain a wealth of informative material about the history of shawls, the process of making them and the methods of storing and caring for them. On these pages you can find some of the secrets of making this down wonder.

Some books about the Orenburg down shawl are on open sale in our online catalogue. Rare books, of course, exist in a single copy in our library, are not offered for sale and are exclusive items.

Among our books there are both those obtained by our staff through painstaking searches and those given to us during our company's participation in various exhibitions, presentations, academic conferences and diverse events in the world of culture and art of our region dedicated to the Orenburg down shawl.

Many books were written by art historians, specialists in the history and culture of the Orenburg region. Others – even by down-knitting masters themselves. In them you can find much that is informative about the very process of making down shawls – from combing out the down to the knitting, into which craftswomen put not only titanic labour but also a part of themselves, their soul.

All the volumes in the library have been studied by responsible staff from cover to cover. We do not intend to rest on our laurels. We are sure that in different corners of our region, or even of the whole country or world, many more truly interesting publications can be found to expand the library and enrich our own knowledge of the Orenburg down shawl.

Searching for books about the Orenburg down shawl is not easy work, because very few publications have been issued over the entire history of the craft, and those that "saw the light of day" are mostly very rare. But since the "ceiling" in this matter has not been reached and our collection is surely not yet complete, we will continue our search. When new and interesting items appear in our company's collection, we will report it in the news feed.