Kokoshnik Headdress. Beauty Traditions

Headdresses make an integral part of the Russian national costume. In peasants’ and merchants’ families, they would be handed over from mother to daughter. Thus, they have great value for insight into and study of the Russian material culture.

The Russian folk costume changed little overtime. Townsmen had to modernize their looks radically after Peter I issued decrees that banned wearing old Russian traditional dress, but this innovation did not affect villagers. Thus, the Russian folk dress, including headdress, became the main form of the national costume that retained ethnic individuality. Moreover, the women’s dress remained more traditional as women were less mobile than men – the latter would go to town for earnings and could take over some town dress elements. What is a still important, there were superstitious beliefs that traditional fashions and finishing of the dress would protect their owner from evil people or spirits. And who else but the woman, guardian of the family traditions and hearth, who carries, bears and brings up the family successors, needs this protection more?

Gradually, there developed local variations of the national Russian costume, including headdresses, which had exclusive traits. For example, the so-called ‘unicorn’ headdresses, protruding over the forehead, were typical of Olonets province (Karelia) while tall pointed headdresses betrayed locals of Kostroma or Yaroslavl. Double-horn, or crescent shaped, headdresses were popular in Vladimir and Nizny Novgorod provinces and then spread further east to the Central Volga region.

In the Central Volga, historically multi-ethnic, the Russians could include the elements of both northern and southern national costume in their dress. There you could come across the full-length sarafan (sleeveless dress) and the tall kokoshnik headdress typical of North Russia as well as the homespun ponyova skirt and the crown-shaped kika headdress usually found in the south. The National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan has provided a rich collection of the Russian costume, various in type and origin, for the present display. The headdresses that you can see present a wide range of the Russian regions and cities: Arkhangelsk, Olonets (north), Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Galich, Tver, Moscow (center), Tula, Ryazan, Voronezh (south), Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod (central east), as well as Kazan, Sviyazhsk, Ufa and other Central Volga cities.

We recommend you to join a special group guided tour of the exhibition to make your visit still more interesting and exciting

Kokoshnik is by right regarded as the smartest of Russian headdresses. Its name comes from an ancient Russian word ‘kokosh’ meaning ‘a hen’ – the headdress was compared to a crest on the bird’s head. Kokoshnik was designed for married women: it entirely covered the hair (in old days, it was scandalous for a married woman to appear bareheaded outdoors or in the presence of strangers). 

The front of the headdress was richly decorated with pearl and nacre, colored glass beads or natural precious stones, trimming, embroidery, ornamental silk inserts or colored foil. The back was made of silk or velvet and decorated with ornamental embroidery in gold thread. But despite the common standards of design and finishing there was no region that had two completely identical headdresses!

Besides kokoshnik’s, there was a great variety of women’s headdresses in use, all of them presented on display. Here you will see crown-shaped kika’s and soroka’s (lit ‘maggie birds’), bonnet-like povoinik’s and volosnik’s as well as narrow fillets and chaplets (the latter were intended for unmarried girls only). 

The exhibition showing elements of the Russian national dress would be incomplete without the dress itself. On display you will see special-occasion women’s dresses from Arkhangelsk, Voronezh and Kazan provinces. Silk kerchiefs embroidered in gold thread as well as cheap popular prints and painting will make the picture complete.

The project has been realized in partnership with the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Ethnographic Museum with the Kazan Federal University (Tatarstan) and the New Jerusalem Museum (Istra, Moscow region). 

Here you can watch a video on the exhibition installation and opening.