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“Put a Shawl on Your Shoulders, My Dear…”

An exhibition “Orenburg Downy Shawl” presented by the Orenburg Regional Museum of Fine Arts was opened on February, 20, in the Excursion-Exhibition Centre “The People’s House” of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov within the program “2014 is the Year of Culture”.

It is a joint project of the two museums linked by many years’ fruitful cooperation. The Orenburg Museum presented unique downy shawls for the exhibition, which was designed by Sholokhov Museum workers and was added with some exhibits from the Museum collection.

At the opening ceremony the Orenburg exhibitors told about the peculiarities of their local goat wool, the shawl knitting technology and showed the ways of wearing the shawls.

The opening ceremony was joined by Yuri Komlev, Director of the Orenburg Museum of Fine Arts, and Alexander Sholokhov, Director of the National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve. They underlined that the cooperation of the two museums would continue and told about the new joint projects.

The Orenburg shawl is known widely in the world, it is a part of the Russian cultural heritage. It is the downy shawl, being the brightest item in its cultural treasure, that defines the unique identity of the Orenburg region. Long ago they were presented as a gift to the royal personages.

The exhibition shows the works of the best knitters of the Orenburg region, artistic peculiarities of the shawls representing the world-known wool knitting manufacture. One of the precious characteristics of the Orenburg shawl is its plasticity and softness. It is practical and easy in wear. The shawl is magnificent when spread opening its rich pattern and showing the best quality of the wool. The visitors can appreciate the unique peculiarities of the wool of local breed goats and the knitting technology. Like 200 years ago, the shawls are handmade.

On the opening day the visitors could join a master-class of spinning the thread and knitting the Orenburg downy shawl according to the secrets of Orenburg women-knitters.

The feature of the exhibition “Orenburg Downy Shawl” is that any visitor can buy a shawl to his liking.

We invite guests and residents of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya to visit the exhibition, which will run until March, 20, 2014.