Almira Samigulovna

About the craftswoman

Almira Samigulovna knitted her first down shawl at 7. There were 3 sisters in her family, and all of them were interested in down knitting and wanted to master the craft.

“Our grandmother taught us,” she says. “At 5 we were already helping her knit for the market. By 12 we felt confident and knitted for the cooperative together with our aunt.”

Stoles to the cooperative's quota

The quota set by the down-knitting cooperative was 4 stoles a month. Almira Samigulovna's aunt, a cooperative employee, could not always cope with such a volume, and her nieces came to help.

“We knitted as freelancers,” the craftswoman recalls. “They gave us yarn and ‘handed down’ the quota. We knitted stoles, and they were stretched there, at the cooperative.”

According to Almira Samigulovna, before working for the cooperative, which supplied home knitters with raw material, yarn was impossible to get. Back then they unravelled hats and got the material from them.

After the factory closed

After the factory collapsed in 1995, Almira Samigulovna knitted only for the market.

“There was still demand. Times were hard, but people bought shawls, and they let you earn an extra kopeck,” she says. “Of course it varied, but people bought. Mostly speculators, less often tourists. There were very interesting buyers who took a batch of shawls to Saint Petersburg to wear them to the theatre.”

Now Almira Samigulovna tries to pass on her craft — she has taught her daughter to knit.

“My daughter is 31; she knits after work,” she says. “When she studied in Zheltoye, down knitting was a compulsory subject, taught by Roza Sakhabovna. Unfortunately these courses no longer exist; they are taught in Orenburg now.”

Today Almira Samigulovna works with us and, as in the days of the down-knitting cooperative, knits stoles. Her favourite items are openwork stoles, and these beautiful pieces are available in the Shalnoy Orenburg online store.