Pitched pearls - an ancient decoration of Northern Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the North of Russia, there was a legend that pearls appear only in those rivers where the royal fish, salmon, enters. They believed that a pearl was born in the gills of a salmon. A salmon, swimming in the sea for several years, carries a pearl spark with it, and when it returns to the river, on a warm sunny day, it finds the most beautiful open shell at the bottom and gently lowers a pearl drop into it, from which the pearl subsequently grows.

The best Russian pearls were called pitched, that is, round, rolling. They said about him that he was nothing but tears of joy or sadness that rolled down from the mirror. Regular spherical pearls with a thick mother-of-pearl layer of white and silver color, which does not stand still on a silver platter - the longer it rolled, the higher its cost.

Experienced pearl divers could determine not only the size and shape of the pearl, but even its color - white, pink, bluish or black by the appearance of the shell. Large white pearls were especially appreciated, and the cheapest were considered to be fine-grained bluish pearls of irregular shape.

In the North, only men were involved in this trade.

Pearl fishing was carried out throughout the summer - from the end of May to the beginning of September. It is at this time that the water in the rivers decreases. The temperature of the water in the fast northern rivers is very cold, so no one dared to dive for shells. But how, through ripples and reflections on the surface of the water, can you see a small shell lying on the bottom?

For this, the catchers used an original, albeit uncomplicated device - a water gaze. It was a hollow birch-bark beetle tube (about 15 cm in diameter and almost a meter in length), which the industrialist lowered through a hole in the raft with one end under the water, and pressed his face tightly to the other (upper) end, looking at the bottom of the river.

Having looked at a suitable shell, they took a pole with a bifurcated end, pressed it to the bottom and opened it.

The extracted pearls were put into the mouth for two hours - they were pickled. Then - in a wet rag and held on his chest. All this was done for the sake of color. Grains were prized round, round. Uneven pearls were called horned, charcoal, ugly, toothed, half-hearted …

Large and round were highly prized, they were called grain. For grain it was possible to take 5 rubles. For comparison, a cow cost 10 rubles. Kokoshniks embroidered with pearls were estimated at 3 cows, at 4 cows … Well, small or uneven ones were worth the weight. They were given to monasteries, to embroider icon cases.

Pearl was the country of Russia-150 northern rivers were famous for their pearls. Volga to Simbirsk, Seliger and Ilmen - lake. On Onega one could find not only white, but also black pearls. So they went for pearls like for fish. There is evidence that for many centuries Russia was in the first place in the extraction of river pearls, and the export of Russian pearls abroad, for example, in 1860, was estimated at 182 thousand rubles. At that time - a lot of money (about a billion in current prices).

And they embroidered almost everything with pearls: from kokoshniks and scarves to boots. And there was enough for export, and for kokoshniks and to give to the treasury, as Peter ordered | It was by his order that the largest pearls immediately became the property of the king.

And at the beginning of the 20th century, pearls ran out … Immediately and almost everywhere.

There are pearls, but there are no pearls in them. They began to raft the forest, built a hydroelectric power station, the rivers became polluted, salmon stopped spawning, pearls were gone …

Material, technique: silk fabric, cotton braid, river pearls, round mother-of-pearl, crystal, colored glass in metal casts, cardboard, cotton threads, sewing on linen, sewing.

Pull it down to a festive headdress in the form of an openwork mesh made of small river pearls strung on horsehair and a wire frame. The front part of the strip of braid. Drawstrings on the back.

Women's headdress - kokoshnik.

Mid-19th century Kargopol district. Olonets province.

Gold braid, small river pearls, mother-of-pearl dies, chopped mother-of-pearl.

A headdress of a peculiar shape, with a horn protruding above the forehead, with ears and a flat top. Used to be only in the Olonets province. It was abundantly decorated with pearls (pearl mining was widely developed in these parts).

Archaic elements can be traced in the ornament of the headdress: for example, in the golden pattern on the ears, the forms of the temporal lobe rings, which existed among the Slavs-Vyatichi, are easily discerned; sometimes embroidered here! the initials of the owner.

This headdress is noteworthy for its underside of several rows of pearl undercut, protruding over the forehead. The impression was created of the abundant wealth of pearls in the dress. But there was a secret here: only the first row to the viewer was drawn out of pearls, sometimes mixed with chipped mother-of-pearl, and under the second or third row of lowering, there was a cushion directly adjacent to the flask, which visually increased the volume of precious pearls.

Spun gold and silver threads, beat, chopped mother-of-pearl, cut glass, pearls, gilded foil

The upper part of the kokoshnik is sewn up entirely with gold threads. The front is laid in fan-shaped folds. The headpiece is decorated with a pattern of large stylized flowers - tulips, cut with pearls, mother-of-pearl dies, faceted glasses in metal nests, openwork underneath, decorated with rounded river teeth.

He lived in villages along the Mezen River.

The shell of the pearl mussel is a source of pearls in the rivers of the North. Exhibition We breathe from the sea. Traditional culture of the Pomor coast of the White Sea (Museum of Kizhi and Belomorsky District Museum of the White Sea Petroglyphs) 2016

Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Karelia. Permanent exhibition. Section dedicated to the decorative and applied arts of the peoples of Karelia.