The Makers of a Film About the Orenburg Down Shawl Visit Shalnoy Orenburg

This autumn a pleasant surprise awaited Orenburg and our company. The talented Moscow director Alexander Ryazantsev, having received a presidential grant, came to the Orenburg Region to shoot a documentary about one of its main treasures. Alexander wrote the script for the film “The Orenburg Down Shawl. A Vanishing Russian Miracle” himself, and it was approved at the highest level.

Ryazantsev and his film crew wanted to show the special centuries-old culture of the people of the Orenburg Region and to preserve for future generations a reliable account of the region's down-knitting craft. As the director admits, he would not want such a powerful craft with a centuries-old history to sink into oblivion. However, the problems in the development of down knitting today are obvious, and there is a lot of work to be done here.

A week of filming in the Orenburg Region

On 22 September Alexander and his team arrived in Orenburg and got to work. Their plan was designed for one week of filming and included visits to almost all significant places and conversations with authoritative people connected in one way or another with the region's down craft.

The director did not pass by our organisation either. He wanted to see what the production of down shawls looks like today, and in Orenburg there is a trading and manufacturing company that builds its activities on the methods and principles of the down artel that existed back in the USSR. So on 23 September Alexander's team came to the settlement of Saraktash in the Orenburg Region, where the production facilities of Shalnoy Orenburg are located.

We prepared carefully to receive the guests from the capital. The core of the team of craftswomen gathered at the appointed place, headed by our organisation's head of production, Irina Mikhailovna Bolotova. A lot of material was prepared for the presentation: samples of the down from which our craftswomen knit, a large amount of finished products, including the company's “flagship” models, as well as a detailed account for the filming of what our firm is and what goals it sets itself.

Besides Alexander and his team, our guests that day were the head of the “Orenburg Down Shawl” gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts, Irina Vladimirovna Bushukhina, and an employee of the press service of the Office of the Governor of the Orenburg Region, Veronika Yuryevna Venevtseva. They too were interested to see how our company is developing the region's down knitting and what goals it sets for the future.

A modern-style down artel

The head of the company, Nikolai Andreevich Zakharov, introduced the guests to the production team of Shalnoy Orenburg and explained in detail the organisation's working principles, so that the film crew could get a full picture of what a modern-style down artel looks like.

“We started as a small online store for which a few craftswomen knitted,” he says. “For many years we worked tirelessly searching for talented knitters, tried to tell interested people about ourselves, and offered them work in our organisation, as once, in the best times for the craft, in a down artel. Among our current employees, by the way, there are many who have extensive experience of working in Soviet artels, and many of them have been awarded honorary titles and awards.”

The craftswomen themselves have always spoken well of the organisation: they liked the working conditions and the corporate and team spirit. Almost the first thing that struck Alexander was the positive attitude of the knitters and the friendly atmosphere in the team.

“We always try to provide our employees not only with decent working conditions, but also with a favourable atmosphere in the organisation,” said Andrei Aleksandrovich. “Each employee gets an individual approach; we always strive to establish human communication and to meet our team, each of its members, halfway.”

Nikolai Andreevich Zakharov and head of production Irina Mikhailovna Bolotova, working in tandem, showed the raw material from which the company's craftswomen knit Orenburg down shawls and other goat-down products, and then presented the products themselves — many of their authors were present at the filming. Using herself and several craftswomen as examples, Irina Mikhailovna showed how beautiful and elegant a down shawl looks on a woman and how well a well-chosen down item combines with almost any element of a wardrobe.

How to preserve the craft

The director was very interested in the trends and problems of the development of the down-knitting craft in modern conditions. Given the specifics of the work, the main question was: how can this craft be preserved for many years to come?

Nikolai Andreevich shared his thoughts on the main problems of the craft, accumulated over years of work. He is convinced that popularising the down shawl among the general public can and should become one of the main driving forces that will inspire today's young generation to develop the craft in the future. Once again the problem of counterfeit was raised: it is sold to uninformed buyers at knock-down prices, and the low quality of fakes creates a false idea of the Orenburg down shawl.

“Unfortunately, most people outside our region have only a superficial idea of the Orenburg down shawl,” says Nikolai Andreevich. “The dominance of counterfeit on the Russian and world markets is a huge scourge for everyone who works honestly and strives to preserve the centuries-old traditions of down knitting. Just imagine: an uninformed person bought a counterfeit shawl, tempted by a knock-down price, without even realising how much a genuine handmade item, made according to all the canons of Orenburg craftswomen, actually costs. And we all know the quality of a counterfeit shawl. The result: such a buyer is disappointed and now thinks that Orenburg down shawls are exactly like that — unreliable, short-lived, coarse. The person does not even know they were deceived. Will they ever want to try a second time? Hardly…”

Nikolai Andreevich also shared his thoughts on how the craft will develop in the foreseeable future.

“Of course, we are very worried about what awaits the Orenburg down shawl in years to come,” he says. “We are fighting with all available methods so that the craft does not disappear altogether over time. We take part in all possible events connected in one way or another with folk crafts, exhibit our products in Russia and around the world, gather information bit by bit and try to fulfil an educational function, telling about the craft through all the channels available to us. But our efforts are not always enough. I believe that popularising the craft and the Orenburg down shawl as such is one of the main driving forces. We need to tell people more about the unique craft that exists in our native region. Show it more often on federal channels, and perhaps more actively carry this culture beyond our country. We all remember what demand and what interest there was in Orenburg shawls abroad several decades ago. And it is really possible to bring this interest back; the main thing is to make an effort…”

Andrei Aleksandrovich agreed with his colleague and added:

“Popularising down knitting is undoubtedly an important process. It can motivate future generations to actively get involved in its revival and development. After all, by telling people in detail about the subtleties of down production, we can teach them to tell genuine Orenburg down shawls from crude fakes, so that in the future potential buyers are not deceived and the reputation of the craft as a whole is not shaken…”

Craftswomen in front of the camera

The guests were impressed by everything they saw and heard with us. Besides the management, Alexander was happy to talk with some of the knitters.

“Our employees are no less unique in themselves than the items they knit,” says Irina Mikhailovna, introducing one of the craftswomen, Gulzigan Khansutdinovna Abdulgazizova. “This woman is 82 years old. Yet she keeps all the patterns and charts in her head. She reproduces from memory any composition she has seen once — can you imagine?”

Gulzigan Khansutdinovna also gave Alexander a short interview. Her answers are impressive, and her talents are astonishing.

After the filming, the guests talked with the team in an informal setting over a friendly cup of tea. The knitters were presented with Irina Vladimirovna Bushukhina's book “The Orenburg Down Shawl”, which aroused great interest and a warm response.

Alexander's work continues. The film crew will stay in Orenburg until 27 September — by this time filming should be fully completed. We look forward to its release.

A common goal — to preserve the craft

Working with Alexander was very pleasant — above all because outside the Orenburg Region there are still caring people who, like us, strive to preserve this unique folk craft by all available means. His way is popularising the masterpieces of Orenburg craftswomen through a film that is intended to unite centuries-old traditions and modernity and show that Orenburg shawls can and should be popular and in demand today.

We are always grateful to people like Alexander: our goals coincide in many ways. At any cost, not to let a centuries-old craft disappear, not to allow the loss of traditions that originated here hundreds of years ago. And as long as there are those who bring the story of this wonderful craft to people, we can consider that the Orenburg down-knitting craft not only will not be lost, but also has serious prospects. Restoring the high level that existed before the crisis and the gloomy 1990s, and in the future, perhaps, turning the craft into something bigger — this is our main goal and task.