A shawl from my family’s birthplace
Last autumn, when I finally got around to visiting the village of Manino near Voronezh (Russia), where my father’s family comes from, my aunt Klavdia Pavlenko told me on the phone:
“I’ve already bought you a down shawl, a real Voronezh one.”
“A Voronezh shawl? What kind is that? Is it the Orenburg shawl?” This was the kind of puzzled reaction I got from my relatives and acquaintances when I told them about the gift from my father’s birthplace. The shawl is what led me to write about a craft that is still the main source of income for many women in villages located on the border of Voronezh and Volgograd oblasts.
It is no surprise that people in Volyn only know about the Orenburg down shawl from the lyrics of a Russian song, so their puzzlement is understandable. Most of them have never seen a true shawl-the second-rate shawls sold at the Old Market in Lutsk are a parody of the real woolen article. Their untidy fluff of unknown origin will not keep you warm. That’s why people who sell these items put signs in conspicuous places advertising their desire to purchase old woolen shawls. Their purpose is clear: they want to copy the patterns.
Once I held a true Voronezh woolen shawl in my hands I finally understood why people sing the praises of these handmade articles.
“There was a time when herds of goats would come to Manino,” Aunt Klava reminisced. “Each person had shawls that lasted for decades-and the world’s warmest socks. There was no need to wash them. All you had to do was hang them outside in the heaviest snowstorm. The wind would give them a good lashing, and then you would bring them back in and lay them out on an armchair. After a moment, you could see that the thick wool on the socks had risen five centimeters.”
My father’s native land-the village of Manino-is located in a unique place: on the border of Voronezh and Volgograd oblasts. Where Manino ends the Cossack village (stanytsia) of Krasnopolie (Volgograd oblast) begins. Ukrainian is still spoken in Manino, which was founded by Ukrainian settlers, whereas the local Cossacks prefer to use Russian. There is one thing, though, that unites them: goats of the local Don breed whose fleece is used to make stunningly beautiful high-quality products. The geographical area encompassed by the wool craft extends from the Cossack village of Kumilzhenskaia to the Talova train station, 100 kilometers north of Manino. Located near Manino are the cities of Novokhopersk and Povorino and the Cossack villages of Nekhaevskaia and Alekseevskaia, where large markets selling goat’s wool products still operate. Uriupinsk, the capital of the goat’s wool craft, is only a stone’s throw away. According to an ancient tradition, a bride had to present her bridegroom with a scarf and gloves made of goat’s wool. Warm shawls were used as part of everyday work clothing for women, who spent a lot of time herding cattle.
The Voronezh woolen shawl has never been as famous as its Orenburg counterpart. The former has a simple pattern, and only the purl stitches along the edge are fancier. Fluffy and warm like an oven, the Voronezh shawl is known more for its high quality than delicate appearance. Once you wrap yourself in this kind of shawl, you will never feel the cold. During the century of its existence the shawl-making craft has not vanished, even though it has had its ups and downs. In Manino there are only a few shawl weavers-it’s too hard and tedious a job. I got my shawl from one of the best craftswomen in Manino-aunt Klava’s neighbor Zoia Dymytrenko.
Her husband Pavlo has clearly identifiable Ukrainian roots and still speaks Ukrainian, whereas Dymytrenko herself is Russian and comes from the neighboring village. She says that nowadays people tend to raise cattle more than goats. Goats have short hair but long down, and are ready to yield their wool in December. They are taken to a warm building (a cold stable is not a suitable place for the job) and the wool is plucked in a painful way, with nails, pliers, etc. The wool has to be washed and carded three times, then spun before it is woven.
Dymytrenko started to weave when she was eight years old. There were eight children in her family, six sisters and two brothers. Their father was killed in the war, so they were raised by their mother. To make ends meet, the sisters hired themselves out as weavers. Their mother was a famous weaver, who made shawls until she reached 80. Today she is 84 and only spins.
Goat wool may be heavy or light, depending on the breed of goat. In the Manino area people keep goats that produce good wool: it puffs up several inches and does not need to be carded. (Even in Uriupinsk, the capital of the goat’s wool craft, they card goat’s wool.) Dymytrenko calls Uriupinsk the “wool city” and marvels: “Just imagine, there is a goat standing on a square there!” She was referring to the statue of a nanny-goat that was recently erected in downtown Uriupinsk, the so-called “capital of the Russian province.”
Dymytrenko does not put much store by the shawls made in Uriupinsk or Nekhaevskaia. She says that they “fluff them up”: there are special machines that spin the shawls for 24 hours, making them so fluffy that you would not recognize your own wool in them. On numerous occasions Dymytrenko was advised to do the same with her shawls, but she refuses on principle. She does not have a high opinion of machine-produced Orenburg shawls either. At one point she and her husband tried weaving shawls by machine, but they abandoned the idea because the products were inferior to handmade shawls. Dymytrenko praises the shawls that are made in the Cossack village of Alekseevskaia. The local wool there comes in a variety of colors, and the weavers mix wool of various colors to obtain shawls in a pleasant sky-blue shade. Alekseevskaia shawls are not dyed or fluffed up and are known for their durability.
After I became interested in the local wool craft, I searched for more information on the Internet. What I found there was also confirmed by the women of Manino. The shawl market in Uriupinsk has been dubbed “the market of sad women.” In the villages along the Khoper River goats have always been the primary source of income. Women from these villages stand at the market, draped in shawls, and look pleadingly into the eyes of hawkers-their potential buyers. The newly established borders between the once “fraternal” Soviet republics made it disadvantageous for merchants from Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the Caucasus to travel to the “wool capital.” On days when the shawl market was open, the Uriupinsk police would detain all “non-Russian- looking” people indiscriminately because even gypsies came to the city to buy shawls. In one case some shawl sellers, seeing that their potential buyers were being shoved into a minivan, knocked the guard down and freed the detainees. However, instead of making purchases, the “guests” stole their bags and ran away. A delegation of women weavers was finally granted an audience with the head of the local administration, who promised to sort things out. Nevertheless, the fear of terrorism means that the local cops are continuing these raids.
Whenever Dymytrenko arrives at a market, she sells all her shawls in less than 10 minutes: hawkers snap them up wholesale and then resell them as famous Uriupinsk products. She has made countless shawls, scarves, and socks. Although her eyesight is weak now, she can still weave by touch. She made an extremely light and warm blanket of the finest wool for her granddaughter Valeria (pictured). She washes goat’s wool things only with white household soap, rinses them in vinegar or citric acid, and then stretches them out to give them shape. She only has a small woolen kerchief for herself: she says it is more comfortable when she goes out to take care of the cattle. In Krasnopolie, a Cossack village in Volgograd oblast, there are 40 to 50 goats in each homestead. The Dymytrenkos have only six goats, but they are the finest Uriupinsk and Alekseevskaia breeds.
“Listen. Don’t even think of buying a shawl on the train!” Aunt Klava admonished me before the trip. “They are so horribly fluffed up!”
Throughout history there have always been expert craftsmen and those who use the products of their difficult work. I feel sorry for people who have succumbed to the temptation of buying fluffed up shawls, rather than the real thing made of choice wool. They will never know why these splendid products of women’s tireless hands are celebrated in songs.
