June 03, 2000

Golden Khokhloma


Golden Khokhloma

Along the banks of the Volga River, there is a village called Khokhloma (pronounced: HOK-la-ma). It is surrounded by forests of aspen and birch trees. Over 300 years ago, the villagers found that their growing community could not sustain itself with the limited crops they were able to grow. Rather than cut down their beautiful forests to make room for more farm land, they came up with a way for the trees to provide them with an exportable product. This export was, then, traded for food and other goods. The product was wooden utensils crafted from the local trees.

Khokhloma became a trading center in the Transvolga region. It became quickly known for its unique, hand crafted wooden items. It is said that Boyar B.I. Morozov ordered large quantities of Khokhloma's cups and eating utensils and had them shipped to Moscow in the 17th century.

As the residents of Khokhloma were developing their wood working skills, nearby painters discovered a new way to process beautiful, yet permanent, painting techniques. By using tin, extreme heat and lacquer, they were able to create the appearance of a gilded gold finish. The painters and wood crafters joined their talents to produce Golden Khokhloma.

The craft is still practiced today, using the original techniques and elements. First, seasoned soft wood is hand carved to create spoons, bowls, cups, vases, small pieces of furniture and ornaments. Next, the pieces are dried in a kiln, then covered with clay and placed in the kiln, again. Each piece is hand rubbed and polished using three coats of oil which forms a sticky surface. Tin, or modern powdered aluminum, covers the pieces before their third trip to the kiln. The result is a bright silverish color.

Now, the painters go to work. Each piece is hand decorated and no two are ever alike. The charm of Khokhloma is in the creative patterns of the individual artisans. Typically, only four colors are used; green, black, gold and red. Patterns usually include leaves, berries and flowers. The entire piece is not painted. The idea is to leave a good deal of the silver metal cover exposed. After the painting is done, the piece gets a generous coating of lacquer and a fourth trip to the kiln. It is during this firing that the lacquer covered tin turns to a vibrant gold. Due to the intense heat of the kiln, the painted decoration is literally baked into the wood and cannot peel or wear off.

Golden Khokhloma is still produced today and is a favorite among folk art collectors, worldwide.

Golden Khokhloma
Gift Shop and Gallery

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955