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THE POMOR INDUSTRIES
There is an erroneous view that the Pomors had no other businesses but fishing and sea animals hunting, that is why they called themselves ‘Pomors’ (living by the sea). The Northern lands belonged to those few areas of Rus where salt was produced. The Solovetsky Monastery alone had about 50 salt-works where up to 800 permanent workers were busy and about 300 were hired for the season. Salt producers of the Dvina area and the Vologda Land made up to 800-1000 pood of salt per year, and for more than 200 years they had supplied many regions of the Moscow State with their produce.
One of the most ancient businesses in Pomorye was extraction of tar. Tar was used to black footwear, to lubricate skis, wheels; shipbuilding, rope making, tanning also were in great need of tar. They demanded much of the tar quality.
Not the least factor in the economy of Zavolochye was mica production, which was at its height in the 15ht century. Mica was used for windows and lamps. With the increase in the number of churches and monasteries there appeared a greater need for portable lamps used in icon – bearing processions. Mica was also used for decorating carriages for tsars and rich dignitaries. Russian mica was considered the best in the world and was known as ‘muscovite’ in West Europe and in Asia.
An unusual industry - pearl-fishery - had wide scope in Pomorye. Pearl-oysters were fished for in the mouths of small rivers, such as the Solza, and the Syuzma on the Summer Coast, the Varzuga and the Ponoy on the Tersky Coast, as well as in the Kolech area. Local tax-collectors used to take every tenth pearl for ‘the great Sovereign’. The ‘Sovereign’s pearls’ were sent to Kola and further on to Moscow. Pearls from the Varzuga area usually went to the Patriarch’s treasury. It was in Pomorye that the extraordinary love for pearls appeared among the local population and then widely spread in all strata of society. At one time pearls actually covered all the dresses and caftans, headwear and footwear.
Pomorye supplied the inner part of the State with the local industrial produce; fish (especially salmon), salt, fat, sea animals skins and furs being the most important of all; besides, almost the whole amount of external trade was held in Pomorye – the land used to be the main connecting link between the European Russia and Siberia for trading.
Since times immemorial the main businesses of the Pomor North population were sea animals hunting and fishing. On the coasts and along the river banks there used to be fishing grounds which supplied food for greater part of inhabitants of this large area. Every salmon ‘yama’, every hunting camp ‘skeya’ or seal hunting ground were owned by local people who could sell them, mortgage them as a whole or in parts, to let them and to devise them to their children or to monasteries.
CRAFTS
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 | | CHIP BIRD OF HAPPINESS
From times immemorial birds are considered to link earth and skies, manly and divine. A bird is considered to accompany man’s soul in its last journey.
In pagan mythology there is a duck which brought the earth from the bottom of the ocean and helped create the hard soil.
A flying bird reminds the sun, a pagan symbol of the life-giving source. Christian mythology says that the symbol of Holy Spirit is a dove. The Dove appeared in front of Virgin Mary at the annunciation, the Dove – Holy Spirit comes from the skies during the Christ’s baptismal.
This is why the chip bird which they started to make in Rus more than three hundred years ago has the image of a dove.
It could be that the chip bird making had been the subsidiary craft with the shipbuilders. They made birds out of pine, the butt ends of the tree (three metres from the ground where there are no branches). Arkhangelsk and Voronezh argue which of them was the ‘cradle’ of the Russian Navy. But it was in Arkhangelsk that the first ship called ‘Svyatoy Pavel» (St. Paul) had been launched. It happened six years before the first Voronezh ship ‘Bozhye Providenye’ was ready. Though the time interval was small, the zealous Peter the Great seemed to spare expenses for teaching the Voronezh specialists in the Netherlands and brought masters from Arkhnagelsk to Voronezh, to the area of Shipov’s Forest. They had already finished the Amsterdam School. The first thing the migrants did in a new place was to place a ‘guardian’ in the new house, the bird of happiness. It was they who taught the local masters to make chip birds.
There is a belief that the chip bird brings happiness. In olden times it was places in the ‘red corner’ of the best room on the house, where there used to be the dinner table. In the evenings when a samovar was boiling on the table, the carved bird started to turn around solemnly. It turned and turned slowly as if looking into all the corners of the house to check up whether everything is in order there, whether all the family at home and in harmony with each other.
Church is also regards the wooden birds with favour. It is placed in churches above the gates of heaven - the bird’s body reminds a cross, the biblical symbol. The body is made of one piece of wood, wings from another.
The most important task is to split the log into thin chips. The thinner the chips, the more elegant will be the bird. The logs are connected with each other. Then the ‘feathers’ are spread to make a wing. The intricate curve of the wings is due to the structure of the wood. Traditionally chip birds are neither painted nor lacquered, because the ‘live’ wood favourably influences people. With the time the bird acquires a beautiful bronze colour. Mythological bird naturally blends with any interior. If there is a light nearby it gives the bird additional charm: light goes through the thinnest feathers producing intricate shadows around.
Today birds are made of pine logs. Vivifying energy of pure pine forest, warmth of man’s hands and his good spirits would certainly influence to people who settle such bird in their home.
They would not need to catch their bird of happiness, it is enough to ask master for it, bring it home and domesticate it. |
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| | BIRCH BARK ‘TUYES’
Objects made of birch bark were known long ago. Making birch bark household things has been considered one of the most ancient crafts and traditionally Russian. Birch bark, the outer layer of the hard bark of birch, consists of easily splitting thin, almost transparent, layers; they are smooth, white or yellowish or reddish. Birch bark has some properties that allows the material to be used widely, among them are plasticity, small specific gravity, bactericidal property, hydroscopic, waterproof and thermo-proof qualities and what is most important it can be found anywhere and is easy to process.
Birch bark was used in building industry to protect constructions from cold, water and rotting. Boats were planked with birch bark; floats and other fishing equipment were made of it. Birch bark was used for footwear, utensils, toys making. Dry sublimated birch skin is still used to get tar. Birch bark charters which have survived to our times are the most ancient monuments of the Slavic culture. The art of birch bark processing has reached its highest in the Russian North.
‘Tuyes’ is a traditional vessel of cylindrical form made of birch bark. Two or three layers of bark allow keeping any food cool - mushrooms, berries, and fish. Once they were used to bring ‘kvas’ (drink made of dry bread) or milk to hay making grounds and the drinks stayed cool even in a very hot weather. Mushrooms and cabbages were salted in ‘tuyes’. Water was brought to the house in ‘tuyes’, berries as well as honey and sour cream were kept in them, too. The vessels are solid, sterile – nothing goes funny in them. The oldest of the tuyes, of fifty years and more, are very elegant and their colour has a tint of ivory in it. |
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| | BONE CARVING OF KHOLMOGORY
For more than 400 years the unique art of bone carving of Kholmogory have lived, first mentioned in the archives on the 17th century. The flourishing years of the art were the times of Peter the Great’s rule. It was then that the unique works were made which even today are examples of artistic and technical achievements for contemporary masters. In the 18th century bone carving developed quickly. The name of Fedot Ivanovich Shubin, a famous Russian sculptor, who came to Saint Petersburg in 1759, became familiar to a wide circle of dignitaries thanks to wonderful pieces of bone carvings and mother-of-pearl objects.
The period in bone carving development connected with the name of F. Shubin was followed by another one associated with an outstanding man, Osip Khristoforovich Dudin, a well-educated person and a rare lover of books. He used to make carved chess figurines for an heir to the throne, the Great Prince Pavel Petrovich.
The 19th - 20th centuries the bone is characterized with carved through ornaments. Beautiful household objects exhibited in the local museum were made using this technique, including the plate presented to the Great Prince Vladimir Alekseyevich on his visit to Kholmogory in 1885 by Mikhail Mikailovich Bobretsov.
In the first half of the last century the artisans of the North mastered a new technique of engraving on bone. The most well-known artists of the period were N.D. Butorin, V.A. Prosvirnin, V.T. Vatlin.
The 1990s are characterized by original, highly individualized approaches to the art. The leading masters of today are G.F. Osipov, V.N. Khabarov, whose works are exhibited in many museums of Russian and abroad.
These days they make a great number of objects for sale, as well as unique pieces at the bone carving workshop in the settlement of Lomonosovo out of walrus, mammoth and even domesticated animals bones. The craft is not getting old, it is thriving because of new themes and techniques and new creative forces coming into business. |
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| FOLK TOYS OF CLAY |
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| | KARGOPOL TOYS
Not long ago Ulyana Babkina, a woman who knew how to make toy of clay lived in a small village of Grinyovo near the town of Kargopol in the Russian North. Gradually less and less people stayed in the village, no other artisans who made toys were left in it. The business would have died away if it were not for Ulyana Babkina who persisted in making her toys. She willingly taught all those who wanted to learn the craft and managed to leave successors in it. They dispersed to the neighbouring villages, to the town of Kargopol. Thanks to them the folk toy of Kargopol still lives.
To make a toy one needs red clay. The figurines are made a bit coarse, stocky, heads grow straight from shoulders, legs are short. Animals are ‘humanised’, they are busy with the same things as people are: bears, goats and ram play musical instruments, bring plates, smoke. The toys are dried, and then in a few weeks they were fired, then white-washed. The painting of the toys is very simple – lines, strokes, diamonds, specks. The colours are blue, terra-cotta, green, black, ochre. Sometimes gold and bronze colours are added. |
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| DECORATIVE PAINTING ON WOOD |
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| | PERMOGORY WOOD PAINTING
Permogory wood painting embraces works of artisans from the villages of Cherepanovo, Bolshoi Bereznik, and Gredinskaya, they all are 4 km from the river station of Permogorye. The main motif of the Permogorye wood painting is floral design. Thin sprouts are threaded with slightly curved leaves grouped by three, with pointed ends, and tulip-like flowers reminding ancient flower of krinum. Among them rosettes of rounded leaves are scattered, as well as Sirin birds, and other fabulous fairy-tale birds.
The folk painting of Prmogorye of the 19th century usually features a floral motif adorning genre pictures of peasants’ life. White of the foreground and red of the design prevail in the colour scheme of the Permogorye painting. Yellow and green are always additional, supporting clours. Fine contours made in black with a finely pointed geese feather are made freely, quickly and always masterly. The black contour was the first to appear on the white foreground, then it was filled with colours.
The range of household painted objects was very wide – numerous vessels made of birch bark and wood, even big things, such as cradles, caskets, trunks, bed stands were painted. But the most often distaffs were painted. For every peasant woman her distaff was not only the most necessary tool but an object that accompanied her during her life-time reminding her of her young days, of wedding rituals. |
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| | BOROK PAINTING
This painting was sparkling with the white of the foreground, with the red of the floral ornaments. Tinsel gold leaves were favourite on the distaffs made in this area, gold imparts more festive and joyful character to them. Composition of the wide part of the distaff is usually divided into three parts. In the upper part they usually painted windows with flowers on the sills, in the central part there was a fairy-tale bush with birds, in the bottom part there used to a genre scene of a ride in a horse cart. |
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| | RAKULKA WOOD PAINTING
It is completely different from the Borok and Permogorye paintings. The main role is played by golden and ochre and black colours, additional are dark green and brownish red. The elements of design are larger, mainly of ornamental leaves. Not only the contours are black, but also many details – tendrils, curves, and veins.
Covering objects of everyday life with festive and bright painting folk artists made them objects of art which bring us much joy even now. |
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| | MEZEN PAINTING
The Mezen painting is also different from other styles of folk painting. It distinctly reflects archaic idea of the world of the ancient people. The roots of the ornaments go deep into the past. When petroglyphs were found on the coast of the White Sea and on the shores of Onega Lake it turned out they had much in common with some designs of the Mezen folk painting.
Another specific feature is that the painting was usually made by men. At the end of the 19th century in the settlement of Paloshchelye on the bank if the Mezen River there appeared an industry – wood painting of household utensils: ‘tuyes’es, bast-buskets, boxes, the most famous being distaffs, of course.
The Mezen painting colour scheme is very limited – red lead and black soot. The ornaments were painted first in spots and lines, and then their contours were drawn in black. The painted object was covered with drying oil which gave golden tint to it. In spite of its seemingly simple design the Mezen painting is of great interest. Geometric rows are made of pre-historic symbols of the earth, the sun, water; they are combined with images of horses, deer, and birds. Combination of figures is a variant of ancient written messages. Seeds, cones, fruit painted inside the diamond shapes are symbols of fertility. These signs are common to many peoples of the world. Rounded shapes or crosses, symbols of fire, are ancient ‘guardians’. Birds and animals have additional meaning in the daily magic. A deer brings happiness, joy, and is connected with Ilya the Prophet (the roots are in pre-historic agrarian and hunting mythology). A horse has a meaning of the Sun. Ancient people thought a horse takes the Sun up to the sky every morning. A bird in folklore is very special. Swans and ducks are most often painted. The duck is of great importance, it takes the Sun to the underground world every night and thus guards the order of things above. The swan is connected with the elements, promises good crop, light, riches. |
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