Nowadays shawls from Pavlovsky Posad are worn in different countries - in the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Ukraine, and Moldova. They blend well both with traditional national costumes and with modern urban clothing. Peasant costumes retained their traditional indigenous features until the late nineteenth century. At that time it was customary for women to cover their hair with a fairly intricate headdress. In the southern provinces of Russia it was usually a kika, a horned headpiece with bright embroidery; in the north it was a kokoshnik, a diadem-like piece embroidered in gold, silver, and pearls, which was kept in peasant families as heirlooms and handed down from mother to daughter for generations. Shawls and kerchiefs embroidered in gold thread were much sought after, especially those made in Kargopol and Nizhni-Novgorod. They were worked in satin stitch with gilded, silver, and copper threads. The violet-carmine, carmine-rose, terra verde, or ocher colors of velvet or silk set off the soft texture of gold embroidery with its muted light-and-shade effects. In one of the shawl's corners a large design was embroidered, filling about three-quarters of the whole shawl. Covering the head down to the shoulders, such a shawl, worn with a satin sarafan dress or a gold-embroidered vest, formed a beautiful ensemble. A predilection for intense colors and bold designs is characteristic of traditional peasant dress, especially women's, in which even crude home-spun cloth was beautified by means of various embroidered decorations, sewn-on ribbons, and gilt galloons. Polk costumes remained almost unaltered for a very long time, each province or district adhering to its regional style. Nevertheless, the variety of distinctive local features can be divided into two basic types: the northern and the southern styles of costume. In the north, women wore linen straightly cut chemises with wide embroidered sleeves, over which they donned sleeveless sarafan dresses up to six meters wide at the hemline. In central and southern provinces, Russian women favored homespun skirts (paniovas), which consisted of several widths of woollen material, stitched together and wrapped around the body. Skirts were usually dark blue, black, or red with stripes or checks. Aprons decorated with embroidery, silk ribbons, and lace were a requisite accessory. There were numerous variations within each of these two basic styles, but the general effect was a strikingly elaborate whole and its details. It would hardly be fair to give preference to only one regional costume for its artistic merits because there are so many other superb examples. Peasant women's chemises of the Tambov Province are remarkable for the exquisite graphic quality of the black geometric designs embroidered on their sleeves; dresses of Tula peasant women, with their wide sleeves and large aprons, stand out for their rhythmic freedom in the arrangement of large and small red designs; flared white and blue cotton-print sleeveless dresses worn by peasant women of Arkhangelsk Province vied with costumes of the Vereya District of Moscow Province, distinguished by their crimson-red iridescence and lovely small embroidered decorations; outstanding in their beauty are peasant costumes from Riazan Province, in the embroidery and laces of which red tones predominate; mosaic-like patterns of dress yokes is the most imposing feature of peasant women's costumes from the Kargopol District of Olonets Province. All of these costumes demonstrate precious facets of national talent. Woven patterns and embroidered designs complemented each other, although in certain regions one of these predominated, thus determining the general style of costume. The embroidery of northern Russia (Arkhangelsk, Vologda, and Olonets Provinces) and of Tver Province is rich in archaic pictorial motifs formerly associated with the cult of fertility and magical protection of hearth. Variations of tripartite compositions, dominated by the figure of a goddess flanked by horses, riders, trees, or birds, often occur on the sleeves and hems of women's chemises and on the borders of homespun towels. Birds were among the favorite images of Russian folklore. Ornaments with representations of birds, either in a generalized form or depicted in a life-like manner, were often combined to form compositions of varying complexity. Other popular zoomorphic motifs in embroidery were horses, deer, dogs, frogs, serpents, and various fantastic creatures. As their magical significance was gradually forgotten, they became associated with the poetic world of fairy tales. Throughout the centuries, the following principles have been observed in the art of embroidery: two-dimensional representation, an emphasis on the most essential forms, and a concise mode of expression. Not infrequently, compositions of rich decorative effect were worked entirely in red over light-colored homespun cloth. In the north, the sleeves and hems of women's chemises were embroidered with red and occasionally blue thread. These chemises were an indispensable part of a Russian woman's trousseau. The most beautiful of them were worn on such occasions as wedding celebrations and the first day of hay-making or harvesting. The function of embroidered towels was more diverse. They decorated the icon corner in a peasant hut, and they were also hung on "sacred" trees and on roadside and graveyard crosses; newborn babies were laid on them; they also served to lower coffins into the grave. This is why their characteristic motifs were a Tree of Life and various auspicious symbols. Vestiges of ancient symbolism are reflected in embroidered geometric designs commonly found on various articles of southern Russian origin. A virtually infinite number of compositions are made up of lozenges, crosses, roundels, and rosettes, which used to symbolize fertility, fire, and the sun. The bright costume of the south is embroidered in multicolored worsted, with orange tones predominating. Beautiful and bold color combinations are found in checked skirts from Orel, Voronezh, Riazan, and Kursk Provinces, decorated along the sides and hemline with raised embroidered patterns and with spangles and tapes. In the costumes worn in Kaluga and Tula Provinces, wide use is made of embroidery in colored threads. Embroidery was more in contact with urban culture than weaving, which resulted in very interesting articles of folk handicraft such as broad bed valances made in Vologda Province. Resembling a frieze, they carried scenes from the life of the country gentry, or depicted architectural splendors, ships, and smartly dressed town people. Urban influence was responsible for the widespread use of satin stitch in white thread, hem stitch, and colored cross stitch. Such articles were in great demand in the towns, causing centers for their production to appear in many parts of Russia. Thus, Mstiora was famous for its satin-stitch embroidery in white thread, Novgorod Province for various types of hem-stitch work, Riazan for its multicolored needlework, Torzhok for its embroidery in gold thread, and Kaluga for its embroidery in colored threads with drawn-thread work. Even now, hand-embroidered decorations are widely used as trimmings for clothes, tablecloths, napkins, and other articles. Russian carpet-making has been connected with the textile-weaving trade. Peasants from the southern provinces wove thick woollen bedspreads with striped or geometric ornaments. Flat-handwoven rugs with large floral designs were made in Kursk and Voronezh Provinces in the nineteenth century as coverings for benches, chairs, or sledges. Similarly patterned pile rugs were woven in the Urals and in Siberia. Carpet-making continues in its traditional centers even today, except for Voronezh, where checked plaids in attractive original colors are produced instead. Like many other European countries, Russia had a well-established lace-making trade. The oldest surviving lace of gold or silver thread dates back to the fourteenth century. Old records contain evidence that lace was used for decorative purposes even earlier. Gold and silver lace was woven with a weft of silk threads entwined with very thin gilded or silvered copper wire. In the eighteenth century, Russian lacemakers also used flattened wire of different hues, creating a type of lace for trimming fine clothes and headdresses. Later, the ornamental motifs of gold and silver lace were em-ployed in bobbin lace made of white linen thread, large quantities of which were produced in many old towns and country estates. Colored threads were also used a great deal. In Galich, for example, an old town in Kostroma Province, lace designs were generally accentuated by an outline in green, pink, and yellow threads. One of the lacemakers' favorite practices was to intersperse lace panels with colored silk ribbons. Lace ornaments made there depicted fabulous beasts and birds, traditional peasant embroidery motifs, as did lace from Kaliazin and Torzhok, two towns in Tver Province. In the eighteenth century, there was also a lace-making industry in Orel Province, particularly in the towns of Yelets, Mtsensk, and villages in their vicinity. Their best quality work did not fall short of European standards. Thin silk lace was the specialty of the town of Balakhna on the Volga, where kerchiefs, scarves, and dress trimmings were woven. Lace from the town of Mikhailov in Riazan Province, dense and thick, had the form of a narrow strip and was made of red, blue, and white threads. Peasants used to decorate their shirts, chemises, and aprons with it. The Mikhailov lace has retained its originality and is widely used for trimming modern clothes. Very famous lace, predominantly of white linen thread, is made in Vologda. The design is formed by a smooth continuous line of clothwork against an openwork netting. Contemporary lace-making has been more enriched with new motifs and images than embroidery. Instead of producing lengths of lace, women now engaged in the trade make articles for interior decoration or for wear such as tablecloths, bedspreads, and napkins, or collars, scarves, and dress insets and panels. Pottery-making, one of the earliest and most widespread trades in Russia, was practiced throughout the country. The form of earthenware vessels and methods of decoration varied from place to place. They were closely linked with local artistic tastes and traditions. Thus, in Yaroslavl Province, smoked and burnished jugs of simple and severe form and noble appearance were made in the nineteenth century, whereas in the same period the town of Skopin, in Riazan Province, had a reputation for its ornate pitchers for fevass, which were amazingly intricate in form and profusely decorated. In addition to pottery, clay toys were often made. Especially celebrated toys were produced by women artisans from what was formerly known as Dymkovo Sloboda, a suburb of Viatka. The Dymkovo toy is nearly five hundred years old. An annual fair known as Svistunya (Whistling Woman) used to be held in Viatka, where clay whistles and figurines were brought by the thousands from all the neighborhoods. The Viatka fair tradition derives from the heathen Slavonic custom of celebrating the arrival of spring; even the still-popular figurines of imposing ladies were at one time linked with pagan beliefs. The soft plastic modelling of the Dymkovo figurines representing wet nurses, horsemen, gold-horned deer and goats, or splendid turkeys is accentuated by brightly painted decorations on white ground; the foundation's color is achieved by covering the surface with powdered chalk dissolved in milk. Toys made in the 1930s and 40s, the time when the craft was revived, are particularly expressive. Contemporary Dymkovo toys conform to the traditional style, yet each reflects the craftsman's individual manner. The style of ceramic toys produced in the village of Filimonovo, in the Tula Region, is entirely different. The static elongated figures of people and animals are devoid of all pictorial elements characteristic of the Dymkovo ware. There is, however, a peculiarly latent dynamism in their clear-cut outlines, sharply correlated volumes, and in the conventionality of their decoration - alternating red and green stripes. In shape, the Penza toys are similar to the Filimonovo ware, but they are larger and painted in local colors. Toys from Kargopol, in the Arkhangelsk Region, demonstrate a greater freedom of modelling and painting. Interesting toys are made in the Kursk Region, though their modelling and painted decoration in specks of color are somewhat crude and naive. Folk pottery formed the foundation for the thriving industries of Gzhel, one of the most important folk art centers. Gzhel is the name of a locality in the vicinity of Moscow, where high-quality clays abound and where the potter's craft has been practiced from a very early date. Raw clay from Gzhel was brought to Moscow from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries so that craftsmen from the potters' quarter there could throw earthenware, toys, and tiles. Gzhel majolica from the last quarter of the eighteenth century is especially remarkable. Jugs, plates, kvass pitchers, and the like were covered with white enamel, upon which designs were painted before the foundation had dried. Vessels from Gzhel have gentle rounded shapes with gradually widening necks. Kvass pitchers, as a rule, are decorated with applied handworked figurines. The Gzhel ware's light and airy painting is pleasing to the eye, with plenty of unfilled space around the trees, shrubs, and flowers, amidst which large birds or hares are depicted. Sometimes jugs and kvass vessels were decorated with magnificent views of towns with towers, turrets, and wisps of chimney smoke. 
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