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The village of Kholui, situated about 300 km north-east of Moscow is a place of outstanding beauty, set on the willow-bordered river Teza. It is thought to be one of the oldest settlements in the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality The wooden dachas, decorated with beautiful fretwork, are each set in gardens, where profusions of flowers are planted together with the vegetables which nearly everyone grows. In 1546 an order was sent out by Prince Ivan Vasilievich of Moscow to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery entitled "On Exempting the Starodubsky Salt Mines from Taxes" (1546). This reveals that Kholui belonged to the monastery at this time and supplied it with locally mined and very valuable salt. |
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The village consists of about 1,200 people of whom nearly half are involved in the painting or production of the lacquer miniatures. Kholui has been a centre of icon painting since the 16th century, though legends suggest that icons may have been produced there since before the Mongol invasion. The lacquer-miniature workshops in Kholui were founded on 1st
July 1934. Kholui's art school, founded in 1883, principally
taught icon painting until the Russian revolution, when it was
closed down. |
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