Historical Almanac of the Orenburg Down Shawl: The Chronicle of the Village of Zheltoye

Most traditions, just like the history of the craftitself, are passed on by word of mouth, from generation to generation. Unfortunately, today young men and women show declining interest in the main Orenburg craft. We dare to hope that this phenomenon is temporary, but in any case the historical and cultural heritage of the Region must be preserved, and in documented form.

For this purpose, a large group of enthusiasts and cultural figures of the region has been working for many years; at the Orenburg Museum of Fine Arts a whole gallery is devoted to the Orenburg down shawl, regularly holding exhibitions (both local and touring), master classes and meetings. For its part, Shalnoy Orenburg collects bit by bit all possible information that helps preserve the craft, by all means, from conversations with eyewitnesses and participants to gathering archive materials which, it must be said, no one had touched for a long time.

In this respect the Saraktash District is a real treasure trove of valuable information, and recently, as part of our research, a most valuable almanac came into the hands of our staff, containing a huge amount of information about the craft; moreover, it was created not by a professional “chronicler” or archivist, but by the people.

The name of the village of Zheltoye is familiar to everyone who is interested in Orenburg down knitting and knows a good down shawl. In the Saraktash District this place is known as the largest concentration of some of the best masters of openwork down knitting, and every self-respecting collector of goat-down products simply must have a Zheltoye gossamer shawl among the exhibits (the same can be said of fashionistas who love openwork accessories).

We have long cooperated with the wonderful craftswomen from the village of Zheltoye; our range includes their items, we have written about them on our website, and we maintain warm, friendly relations with them. And some time ago we found out that Zheltoye in fact keeps its own chronicle, or rather, collects archive material on everything related to local down knitting.

With the permission of the enthusiastic creators, who, like us, want to preserve the down craft, its history and traditions, we were allowed to study the resulting album-almanac, some excerpts from which we publish today.

The document has been compiled according to all the rules of archiving and includes various notes, newspaper clippings (including quite old ones), personal profiles and even creative works by local residents and their children related to the Orenburg down shawl.

Some documents date from the first half of the 20th century and contain information about outstanding workers, labour heroes and notable personalities of the village of that time, who preserved and passed on the traditions of down knitting to new generations.

Thanks to our relationship of trust with the craftswomen, we were allowed to borrow the almanac temporarily for research. And our staff got to know closely the materials that these wonderful people had been accumulating for more than a century.

To date, all the necessary work has been done with this unique document; the information has been digitised, securely stored in our own archives and will soon be published for everyone interested. And the unique creation of the craftswomen from Zheltoye has been returned to its historical home, where it belongs.