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Exhibition “Visiting Karghin Masters”

The Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov welcomes the guests of the holiday “Karghin Fair of Intercession Days”, which will be held on October 7, 2018, in Stanitsa Karghinskaya, for the exhibition “Visiting Karghin Masters” from the collection of the Museum-Reserve.

Since ancient times, the Cossacks tried to surround themselves with beautiful things. Thousands of blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, embroiderers, lace makers, carvers, jewelers worked in the Don stanitsas and villages creating unique works of arts and crafts – clothes, dishes, furniture, weapons, ornaments. For a long time the Don people were engaged in harness making, woodcarving, quilting, wattle and straw weaving, they painted and artistically processed wood, made ceramics. Lace decorations for a bed, towels, tablecloths, woven mats – all those made the Cossack houses unique.

The scientists figured out that each Cossack had approximately two hundred skills and habits which were so habitual and so generally accepted, that they were not even considered to be professions. For example, it was not considered a skill to saddle and harness a horse, to load a cart with hay and many other things partly forgotten today. Cossacks were good at all peasant professions, and, besides, each stanitsa was also the place where masters lived. Each stanitsa differed in some special crafts. There were stanitsas famous for the products of coopers, wheelwrights, shoemakers, tanners. More famous than others were blacksmiths who could shoe any horse, and gunsmiths who forged damask steel. Those masters’ products bearing generic brands were valued a lot.

The visitors will see a unique collection of the Don Cossack houseware of the late XIX – early XX centuries: irons and samovars; carpentry and joinery tools of the early XX century, shoe manufacturing tools.

The exhibits will be presented in sections according to the masters’ professions. A special attraction is table scales “Militant Mermaids” (1899), which were very popular during the reign of Nicholas II; a money storage (1900); a collar (lasso) with bells (the second half of the XIX century), which was worn on the horse's neck.

Old people said: “Each tree is strong with its roots; cut them and the tree will die!” From the past we draw our spiritual strength to improve our future.

Irina Panchenko
Yelena Kleimenova