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Monday 3 January 2011

Talking of Parade Towels - Some Rushnyki For You

I think it was Christmas Eve when we started talking about Parade Towels and I have had such a lot of informative emails since. One of my favourites was from Marie-Louise who said when she was little and wanted to dress up as a Russian her grandmother made her a superb blouse out of two embroidered towels - fabulous! Marie-Louise also sent this link to a gallery of Parade Towels or Rushnyki for you to see more. Maybe there is a kind Russian speaking reader who will translate the text on the top towel for us please?

5 comments:

  1. Good evening

    I've been reading your blog (and loving the jigsaws) for a while. I sent the towel link to my daughter, who is in her second year studying Russian in college. She said the towel says "Sewn in 1963", probably by someone named Olga, and the text at the bottom says "Don't decorate a house with [red] corners; decorate with krushniki [decorative towels.]"

    Red corners (or "beautiful corners," depending on the translation) are where Orthodox Russians would traditionally place their religious icons.

    Another towel says "Good Day" and one of the others (the one with the poem on it) seems to be Ukrainian.

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  2. This is brilliant - thank you vey much Carol - and your daughter also, I wish her great success with her studies.

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  3. Beautiful!!!!I love embroidery with one color!! Morena from Italy
    Happy New year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  4. The top towel is indeed "sewn in 1963" and then it is last name and name (last name is illegible for me).
    The bottom text is a proverb or saying but it's not in Russian...Ukrainian most probable (the languages are very close, so the meaning is correct).
    And in the gallery there's a towel with text like a poem - it's in Ukrainian and goes smth like - when I die bury me in a wide field from where Dnieper can be seen and then other requests (if I understand Ukrainian correctly). :-)

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