Event news
The Best Gift is the One Made by Yourself
Our visitors showed great interest in a guard doll-making workshop. Rag dolls appeared as early as at the time of Ancient Rus. At that time, every family had such a doll, even several dolls, and each of them was meant for a special purpose. For example, for love, happiness, protection from the evil eye or as a guard against illnesses for all family members. According to Galina Beltyukova, an expert in guard doll-making, these dolls contain answers to all questions. “When making a doll, you receive answers to all the questions that used to bother you so much. So, you are sitting and fixing your doll – fixing yourself, your own inner world”, the craftswoman believes.
Weaving baskets from chipped wood was another workshop that gathered a great number of people. Such a basket is also called “dranka” or “luchina”. It’s very important to prepare the material here: a suitable tree should be selected, then it needs to be sawn, so that “there is no duramen left”. However, there’s no need to worry about these things during our workshops, because we’ve prepared everything in advance.
Do you know what a Pomeranian roe deer is and where they originate from? For two days, craftswoman Anna Kryukova taught our visitors to paint and create such northern gingerbreads in the form of a deer. Pomeranian roe deer appeared in Solombala, a district of craftsmen in Arkhangelsk. In those far-off times, such gingerbreads were baked only on greatest occasions. Roe deer were supposed to bring luck. People believed that if a girl baked a roe deer gingerbread herself to make a gift for a young man, she would have definitely marry next year. A big roe deer gingerbread was presented to an entire family.
During the tapestry frame weaving workshop, guests of the Nevskiy Larets could weave a small picture themselves. Warm and vivid pictures can decorate even the limited space of one’s home and make it cosier. According to the experience of our guests, it is not so difficult to learn how to weave. All one needs is patience and a great desire. There are several ways to weave such a picture. They can be either three-dimensional, or flat; it depends on how you lay the threads.
Visitors were particularly pleased to take part in the workshop of the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory commemorating the 275th anniversary of the enterprise, where anyone who felt like it could learn the nuances and the art of painting porcelain by adopting the experience of the leading IPM artists.
Also, during the trade fair, training sessions on mandala and string bracelet plaiting, module mosaics manufacturing technology, wood carving, graphic and free stroke folk painting and much more were held.
