Natalia Ledzhanova, Valentina Basangova, Embroidery

This is Natalia’s story: My name is Natalia. I am a teacher at the Tsagan-Aman gymnasium. I sew and teach sewing to children. People often ask me about the dress that I am wearing now. The embroidery on my chest is called zeg. This dress is for married women. Married women’s dress could be brown as well, but it should not be red or yellow, because these colours were designated for Buddhist monks. This dress is made according to traditional rules. The sleeves are wide and long. All Kalmyk coats, be it for men, women or lamas, had long sleeves. A woman’s dress is decorated with embroidery that protects her from jealous looks. In other words, it is like a protective amulet. The sleeves are also decorated with an embroidery for the same purpose: so that nothing bad gets inside the dress through its sleeves. The hat that I am wearing is called khalmg, which is for married women. The left side of my hat has embroidery that represents my husbands’ family. The left side is decorated with a gold thread that represents my natal house. The top of my hat has plenty of knitting. All Kalmyk hats have a red tassel on top. This is a cover for women’s tresses called shivrlg. The end of the shivrlg has so-called tokug (metal pendants). Old people say that anything bad or negative that a woman may have goes to the ground through the tip of these tokugs. In my youth, I did not pay much attention to many things. Since the 1990s when the Kalmyk Republic started to revive, I became interested (in Kalmyk traditions) and started to read books. The National Museum of Pal’mov in Elista displays dresses of married women. It does not have dresses of single women though. I took measurements from there and made myself a traditional dress and a hat. If one wants a full collection, this needs to include a tsegdg vest as well. This dress with embroidery was made by my students (Natalia shows it in the video). In old and new books there is a lot of information about traditional dresses. There is a very good album by Sychov that explains which colors to choose and how to sew. Our teacher Basangova Valentina Borisovna (who sits beside Natalia) also reads a lot about traditional dress. This embroidery is called zeg, it is made from a golden thread. This is a pillow called tuntg. Before making any embroidery, we draw first what we want to sew. The drawing is divided into 8 parts and it is clearly demarcated which embroidery goes where. Then we start to work on the actual embroidery so that everything is symmetrical. From these small embroideries (Natalia shows) it is possible to make a brooch or a pendant. About how to make embroidery. First you need to make the center of the embroidery, which should be dark or blue in terms of colour. Then you sew circles around it either with gold or silver threads. After that, you can add all other colors as shown in the book. Unfortunately, we do not know the meanings of these embroideries any more, but at least we know the order of making these embroideries. The black color symbolizes a shift from the night into the day. The circles symbolize eternal life. Embroideries can be decorated with tapes. This embroidery is called ungin turun (a colt’s hoof). The base of this embroidery has a gasket made from wool or cloth that gives the colt’s hoof a nice, protruded shape. The alternation of silver and gold threads symbolizes the eternal shift between the day and the night. Traditionally, this pillow is made by the groom’s side and then is handed over to the bride’s side during a wedding. When the embroidery is finished, it is cut with scissors and sewn to the side of a tuntg pillow. I use yellow or gold threads to attach it to the pillow. The edges of the pillow are decorated with twisted threads which are both beautiful and functional. Twisted threads can be used in all kinds of ornaments and embroideries (Natalia shows us how to produce twisted threads).Sponsored by Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwi