Where Can You Learn to Knit Orenburg Down Shawls and More?

We are talking about the Orenburg Regional Art College. This unique educational institution is located in the very centre of the city, at 24 8 Marta Street. Here students are introduced to art and trained in 3 fields at 3 corresponding departments: painting, design, and the department of decorative and applied arts and folk crafts, one of whose specialisations is down knitting.

Students are taught this art by Margarita Zagitovna Aznabaeva, a professional teacher and a true hereditary knitter who began learning the craft at the age of 7. Margarita Zagitovna showed us the classroom, which has visual charts and patterns of Orenburg down shawls. Importantly, students must master all the standard classic patterns and hand in a "report piece" in order to progress further in learning the craft. Already in the first year, students knit small down scarves. The graduation thesis is a complete down item (or even a collection of them), made according to all the canons of down knitting under the teacher's guidance.

The department is also equipped with all the necessary materials: combs for combing, spindles, spinning wheels – all this can be seen in the classroom, and Margarita Zagitovna teaches how to handle all these tools so that students can master the process of knitting a down shawl from the most basic stages to the finished item.

"I really like teaching; I am a teacher by training. I used to work as a primary school teacher, and I am very glad that now I can combine two things I love and teach what I myself have been doing since childhood," says Aznabaeva.

In fact, they try to teach students the art of down knitting from A to Z, starting with the history of the craft and all the necessary theory and ending with the students making their own down items on their own.

We were lucky: we came to the college on the day the works of graduating students were being reviewed. The groups today are very small: this year only three people will graduate in the "Down Knitting" specialisation. One of the students defending her work agreed to talk to us for a bit. She expressed the wish to work in the craft after graduation and told us about some plans for its "modernisation", in particular using traditional elements of Orenburg shawls in modern designs in order to further popularise down items among the younger generation.

Overall, the Orenburg Art College left the most pleasant impression. We had the chance to get to know the teaching staff and management a little during the review of the works. It must be said that the relationships within these walls are almost family-like, and each student is given an individual approach.

If you want to study down knitting, painting or design, you can get the most professional education and, of course, become a certified specialist in your chosen field by studying at the Orenburg Regional Art College. You can find all the necessary information about the structure and admission on the official website of the institution: художественный-колледж.рф.

We were glad to visit this unique educational institution, talk to students and teachers and, of course, tell you about it.

We thank the college director, Vladimir Nikolaevich Eryshev, the head of the Department of Decorative and Applied Arts and Folk Crafts, Irina Gennadyevna Kharitonova, and the down-knitting teacher and hereditary craftswoman Margarita Zagitovna Aznabaeva.