Souvenirs from Gorodets

Russian Souvenir Products from Gorodets

Painting on the wood from Gorodets is a famous folk craft in Russia with one hundred and half year's history, alive developing phenomenon of our modern national culture strongly connected both with the past and the present life of the people.

It started developing in the second half of the XIXth century in the villages near the town of Gorodets. Spinning wheels baskets and boxes for the storage of yarn, children's chairs and some utensils were decorated whith the painting.

Gorodets spinning wheels were especially popular. A lot of them was sold at the Nighegorodskaya fair and spread all over Russia.
The Gorodets painting peculiarity is that it often has the plot. The craftsmen loved painting town people, horsemen, scenes of drinking tea in rich interiors decorated with columns and clocks, with high windows beautiful curtains and magnificent stair-cases. The painting technique used in Gorodets was not complicated. A few rough brush strokes were enough to slap color blotches on the wood; later those stains were worked into flowers and figures. When both the ornamental pattern and the central scene had been completed, they were toned up with white colour and the whole thing given a skincoat of drying oil. Nowadays there is only enterprise producing art products with the traditional painting - "Gorodetskaya rospis". Today the "Gorodets rospis " factory puts out over 30 kinds of artistic items, with new articles added regularly: ornamental dishes and panels, kitchen sets, furniture sets and lots of other handsome Russian gifts and souvenirs.