Description of the attraction
The Flax and Birch Bark Museum is located in Kostroma, on Tereshkova Street. The museum was organized on September 9, 2005. Here, at first glance, incompatible things are combined into a single whole - birch bark and flax. The museum was created by Natalia Pavlovna Zabavina, a native of Kostroma. Today it is one of the most visited sights of Kostroma.
The fabulous teremok is surrounded by green lawns, bright flower beds, a brook, bizarrely curved bridges that delight the eyes of museum guests.
A tour of the Flax and Birch Bark Museum starts from the Flax Hall. Here guests of the museum can see with their own eyes the whole process of the miraculous transformation of straw into peasant clothes. Flax growing, spinning and weaving are the original crafts of the Kostroma population. The level of weaving was quite highly developed. Various methods of twisting threads and forming laces from them were widely used to decorate garments. The archaeological material presented in the museum testifies to the fact that since the 10th century they have been weaving on a vertical weaving mill.
Linen was the main material used for sewing clothes. Uszinka and linen were used for men's shirts, clothing and towels. For outerwear, a coarse fabric was used - votola. A linen shirt formed the basis of a woman's costume; on holidays, a rich shirt was worn over it, decorated on the sleeves and hem with multi-colored braid with protective patterns.
In the flax hall, not only manual, but also factory production of this material is not deprived of attention. It was especially developed in Kostroma in the middle of the 19th century "Mikhinskaya", "Zotovskaya", "Kashinskaya" - this is how Kostroma residents call modern textile factories to this day, which are located in buildings built in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The first flax-spinning factory was founded by Moscow merchants A. A. and K. A. Zotovs in 1859. The factory produced white and harsh linens, kolomenka, ravnduk, matting, tablecloths, napkins, handkerchiefs, towels, sack cloth and others.
Clothing is an interesting area of ethnographic research that is widely represented in the museum. The exhibition presents various types of sundresses; hinged kosoklinny, deaf kosoklinny, round vat and pestryadinny, silk sundresses with shugai, as well as women's shirts and sleeves. Headdresses are interesting exhibits of the museum.
In the birch bark hall, visitors are primarily attracted by characters from Russian fairy tales, which are made using the technique of weaving from birch bark. The guide begins his story with a narration about the traditions of making old products from birch bark: baskets, pistons, pestles, shovels, collected in ethnographic expeditions around the Kostroma region.
Quite a lot of birch bark items are presented here. The easiest to manufacture are products made from a piece of birch bark. Some can be made right in the forest - birch bark, ladles, spoons. Making the same tues, nabiruh, boxes requires special knowledge and certain skills. Wickerwork occupies a special place among birch bark products. They are made from birch bark tape, which is cut from a layer of birch bark or removed from birch in a spiral manner.
In addition to old products, this room displays works from birch bark by modern masters who continue the traditions of ancient craft: A. Yu. Gavrikov, N. P. Zabavina, G. N. Semenova, V. P. Dyrmovsky. and others.
In the museum of flax and birch bark, everyone can take a master class on making a birch bark souvenir with their own hands, where you can learn how to work with birch bark and make a memorable gift with the symbol of Kostroma. Other workshops are devoted to making amulet dolls and weaving.
Visitors to the museum can also buy a souvenir gift made of flax or birch bark as a keepsake, where a wide assortment of bins, bread bins, boxes, toys, amulets and much more are presented decorated with a unique author's painting and embossing. Many of the items in this department were made in the museum's workshop.
A separate hall of the museum is an exhibition and sale of modern linen products. Here you can see and buy everything that modern "linen" Kostroma is rich in: napkins and tablecloths, towels and bed linen, sundresses and dresses, folk shirts, sewn and knitted men's, women's and children's clothing.
