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About gold embroidery

Золотное шитье
Pomeranian gold embroidery is a pearl of the cultural heritage of Karelia and the Russian North.

Our company creates products based on ancient museum exhibits, with the aim of reviving the ancient craft of Karelia, which has been passed down from generation to generation.

Gold embroidery is the most laborious of all types of embroidery, which is distinguished by a variety of seams that create a unique play of textures. Hand embroidery with gold
and silver threads in a special technique refers to one of the most expensive types of needlework, which in ancient times was used to decorate the clothes of monarchs and nobility. Traditional floral, animalistic and marine embroidery patterns combine beauty, sophistication and amulet value.

Products with gold embroidery are an exclusive and exquisite gift for many years.
Pomeranian gold embroidery is a pearl of the cultural heritage of Karelia and the Russian North.

Our company creates products based on ancient museum exhibits, with the aim of reviving the ancient craft of Karelia, which has been passed down from generation to generation.

Gold embroidery is the most laborious of all types of embroidery, which is distinguished by a variety of seams that create a unique play of textures. Hand embroidery with gold
and silver threads in a special technique refers to one of the most expensive types of needlework, which in ancient times was used to decorate the clothes of monarchs and nobility. Traditional floral, animalistic and marine embroidery patterns combine beauty, sophistication and amulet value.

Products with gold embroidery are an exclusive and exquisite gift for many years.
Gold embroidery is the oldest kind of craft. This is decorative and ornamental sewing with gold and silver threads. Later, they were replaced by gilded threads or made of artificial materials,
they were called golden.
Gold embroidery has been known in Russia since ancient times. It is considered that it came from Byzantium together with Orthodoxy more than 1000 years ago. In Russia, gold embroidery had a church purpose, but gradually it switched to sewing icons and decorating the outfits of the nobility, turning into art.
The earliest information about the development of gold embroidery in Pomerania dates back to the XVIII century. From the second half of the nineteenth century, gold embroidery began to develop more actively as a folk craft. The famous center of gold embroidery on the western coast of the White Sea has long been the ancient Pomeranian village of Sumy Posad (Rep. Karelia).
In Sumy Posad and other villages of Pomerania, goldsewers embroidered povoynics (the traditional female headdress of Pomerania) for sale, belts, nakosniki and even garters for stockings.
In 1915, the Pomor Museum of samples of local Women's Needlework was created by the department of the Arkhangelsk Society for the Study of the Russian North in Sumy Posad.
  • In 1916, in Sumy Posad, and then in the village of Soroka of the Kemsky district of the Arkhangelsk province (now the city of Belomorsk Rep. Karelia) courses of women's needlework were opened at the museum, where gold-sewing, knitting, lace and embroidery crafts were mastered, as well as drawing, production techniques and other subjects were taught.
  • Girls from 8-9 years old were taught to do embroidery, slowly, diligently perform painstaking work. Over time, the movements of the craftswomen reached automatism, and the embroidered gold patterns became more and more exquisite. The craft was passed down from generation to generation.
  • For gold sewing, threads of different varieties were used and are currently being used: spun, skanye, beat, trunzal, kanitel. They are all of different shades of gold or silver, different thicknesses, cross-section shapes, but they have one thing in common: they cannot be sewn for a puncture, i.e. they can be dragged through the fabric with a needle. The gold thread is laid in dense parallel rows on top of the fabric and attached with cross stitches with a regular thread for the future.
  • In the 1920s, there was a decline in the craft, there were no needlewomen, but women continued to wear and keep headdresses embroidered with gold threads, and cherish in their memory the names of those who created the headdresses that they inherited from their mothers, presented for a wedding.
  • Since the late 1990s, in Belomorsk, the teacher Ilina Irina from Belomorskaya Secondary school No. 3, together with students, began to study the history of local gold embroidery.
  • It is symbolic that in 2016 the Center of Pomor Culture organized courses of gold embroidery for everyone in Belomorsk and the village of Sumy Posad only a hundred years after their opening.
  • By 2021, under the leadership of I.G. Ilyina, about 40 women were trained in gold embroidery. For many, gold embroidery has become a permanent business.
  • In April 2021. Natalia Lysenkovskaya created our company Ltd. "Golden Thread of Pomerania", registered in Belomorsk. Artists, designers and technologists of the enterprise develop product lines, and traditional Pomeranian patterns are embodied by embroiderers who have been trained in courses organized by the enterprise.
  • Today, the management of the enterprise "Golden Thread of Pomerania" actively restores and preserves the oldest craft, cooperates with artisans, organizes programs for teaching gold sewing.
    Craft workshops on gold embroidery have been opened in Petrozavodsk and Belomorsk.
  • The art of gold embroidery is an age–old tradition and the skill of many generations. This is the solemnity, uniqueness and grandeur of products that are worthy of royalty.
The enterprise "The Golden Thread of Pomorye" actively revives and popularizes the traditional craft of gold embroidery in Russia and abroad. The team of artists uses the techniques and ornaments of Pomeranian gold embroidery to create modern garments and accessories, including for decorating wedding dresses, as well as souvenirs. Embroiderers and technologists are actively working in the workshops of the Petrozavodsk and Belomorsk enterprises.
The main tasks of the enterprise:
  • Revival and preservation of the traditions of Pomeranian gold embroidery.
  • Creation of original products.
  • Familiarization of the general population with traditional Pomeranian embroidery.
  • Creation of courses on teaching gold embroidery.
  • Cooperation with master craftsmen.

Our workshops:

Petrozavodsk, Andropova str., 19
Belomorsk, Oktyabrskaya str., 3
Museums featuring Pomeranian gold embroidery:
  • National Museum of the Republic of Karelia (Petrozavodsk)
  • Museum of Fine Arts (Petrozavodsk)
  • Museum – workshop "Needlework of Pomerania" (Belomorsk)
May 20-21, 2021. Days of the Republic of Karelia in Moscow. Exhibition of decorative and applied art at the International House of Music.


September 29 - October 3, 2021 Exhibition and Fair "Firebird Festival" of Folk Art Crafts in Moscow
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