About the craft
Rozalina Shafikova: A Young and Experienced Knitter of Orenburg Down Shawls
For those who are only superficially familiar with the history of the craft, or not familiar with it at all, it should be said right away: the Shafikov family is today one of the oldest and best-known dynasties of down knitters, both in the village of Zheltoye and in the Orenburg Region as a whole. In this family practically everyone knits Orenburg down shawls, and the craft has been passed from mother to daughter, from grandmother to granddaughter for five generations. The professionalism and beautiful items of the Shafikovs are known not only throughout the Region, but also in Russia and even beyond.
Today Shalnoy Orenburg was visited by the youngest member of this family, a knitter of Orenburg down shawls and, recently, also our wonderful production partner — Rozalina Shafikova.
Despite her record young age for a professional knitter (only 20!), Rozalina can boast of her own items, which are already in no way inferior to the down shawls of craftswomen with much longer experience. When you first see the works coming from Rozalina's needles, you refuse to believe your eyes: the girl knits goat-down items as if she had been doing it all her life. Actually, this statement is not far from the truth.
By the age of 7 Rozalina not only knew how to knit: at that age her first complete item came off her needles, namely a stole, which she affectionately calls “stripy” (this stole, by the way, is still kept at the girl's home, in fact as a keepsake).
Actually, Rozalina still loves knitting those “stripies” to this day, but the range of items she makes has long been not limited to stoles: the girl loves a creative approach to work, likes to master something new and constantly improves her skills.
“I find patterns and charts and then knit from them; now nobody prompts me, I do everything myself,” she says.
We had the pleasure of seeing Rozalina's beautiful works; especially impressive are her openwork gossamer shawls, extremely complex in execution (note: the village of Zheltoye has always been famous for masters of openwork knitting).
Unfortunately, it cannot be said that many young people are taking up down knitting today.
“Even among our people few knit,” says Rozalina. “Many don't understand me and ask: ‘Why do you need this?’ But I just like it, plus I can earn money from it. Isn't that what matters: doing what you love, and professionally too.”
Rozalina plans to continue down knitting and, moreover, to teach this craft to her children. And we in turn are glad that our company now has a wonderful young and promising partner.
Very soon items by Rozalina, which are, we are not afraid of this word, true masterpieces of the craft, will appear in our range. Be sure to follow the updates in the Shalnoy Orenburg online store.
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