Tatyana Evgenyevna

About the craftswoman

Tatyana Evgenyevna is a hereditary knitter who received this priceless knowledge from her grandmother.

“Both my grandmother and my mother knitted in our family,” she says, “but it was my grandmother who taught me — my mother didn't have the patience.”

First earnings

Tatyana Evgenyevna learned to knit at 8. By 12 she was already freely knitting edgings and borders for down shawls to order for the down-knitting cooperative and received real money for it. And in her first year at university she sold her first shawl, knitted from start to finish with her own hands.

Shawls always helped her family out. In the 1990s, when absolutely everything was in short supply, they were even exchanged for clothes and other essentials.

“Once some acquaintances came from another city,” Tatyana Evgenyevna recalls, “and bought three shawls at once. It was a real celebration.”

An all-round master

Tatyana Evgenyevna's value as a craftswoman is that she does not consider herself only a “shawl knitter” or only a “gossamer knitter”. She is an all-rounder and can knit any type of item — quickly and in quantity.

Think the craft has no future? Tatyana Evgenyevna would disagree. She is already preparing her successors: she has taught her daughter to knit and soon plans to teach her granddaughter, who is now 2 years old. And her three-year-old grandson is already showing interest — he wants to learn to knit down socks.

A large personal exhibition was recently held for our craftswomen, and Tatyana Evgenyevna, of course, took part in it with her works.