to the control knowledge of those historical phenomena of our time, which seem to us fatally complex and not subordinate to the ruling will of the people. But whose roots are simple and elementary, like the initial cell of a complex organism.» The embryos of social «evils» are in the personal of each and every one. And we are obliged to take full advantage of the experience of the hoary past, and the closer we get to the embryos of this past, the more consciously, faithfully and confidently we will go «forward» … It is the history of the «childhood of mankind», it is ethnography that will help us to learn the logical laws of natural progress and consciously, and not blindly, go «forward» ourselves and move «forward» your people, for ethnography and history are the paths to the knowledge of that «past», without which it is impossible to apply the knowledge of the present to the knowledge of the future.
«Humanity» consists of «nations» and, first of all, it is logically necessary that the nation is a definite mutual whole, so that it appears to us not in the third person of the plural – «they» – but in the first – «we». Russia, on the other hand, less than any other nation, can know itself without the help of knowing the roots of its past; and without knowing oneself, it is impossible to cognize others and take into account one’s position among others, just as without correcting oneself, it is impossible to correct others… The embryos of many beliefs and ideals perished – let us look for their imprints on objects until they perished for centuries. This is by no means «interesting» or «curious», but also vitally important, necessary.»
No, we do not have a thousand-year history, as it is customary now to write and speak, but many thousand years. One thousand years can be said only in relation to the adoption of Christianity. Indeed, until this year, our ancestors did not live in caves and did not dress in skins.
Not all of a sudden, the word Gardarika («Country of Cities») as the name of Rus came into use in the European world. These cities were on our lands, and they were not born in one day, but took shape and developed over the course of many centuries.
Prince Oleg Novgorods, seizing power in Kiev in 885 and uniting Russia around this center, went to war against Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium, and brought this empire to its knees. And at the beginning of the 10th century, Prince Igor, the son of Rurik, sent 500 ships to the Khazars, who were trying to suppress Russia, with 100 people on board. And they fought to the south of the Caspian Sea. This Russia was feared by other peoples, they reckoned with it, they paid tribute to it. Such strength and unity took shape long before Christianity, and, therefore, our history is incalculably ancient.
In the cities of Rus flocked goods produced by villagers – the townspeople needed not only food and building materials, but also things produced by artisans – fabrics, clay and metal products. The cities themselves became centers the production of many goods and especially luxury items for the growing stratum of the nobility. Judging by the data obtained during numerous excavations, and carefully processed by archaeologists, the Slavs since ancient times have been engaged in exchange trade with other countries, and this required an increase in the qualifications of people employed in any industry. The settlements, the embryos of the ancient Slavs’ cities were also known in the eastern countries: the fact that the Arabs and Persians had known them for a long time is mentioned in the works of Abu Reikhan Biruni (10th century) and Ibn Fadlan (9—10th century). The latter describes the arrival of Rus merchants to Itil (the Volga) and speaks of their ships, weapons, jewelry chains made of precious metals, pearl and beaded necklaces, as well as large wooden houses, which they immediately build on the shore upon arrival and live in 10 – 20 of them with wives and slaves; he also writes that the Russians knew money and at that time they were already selling, and not only changing their goods; he describes both their idols and the rite of burning the dead, in which the wife is killed (or she kills herself) and burned along with the body of her husband (note here that a similar rite is described in ancient Indian literature, which lived in India until the 19th-20th centuries); it is said that «Russian kings usually keep 400 brave warriors (squad) with them in their castle or town… These 400 are sitting below on a large Royal sofa, decorated with precious stones …, he (the King or Prince) has a governor, who leads the army…»
All these data are presented by N. M. Karamzin in the book «History of the Russian State», v.1. So what is the beginning of statehood, and indeed our history can be dated to just one millennium? There were cities, there was class stratification, there were historical traditions, and all this took shape from ancient times.
So, in these cities of the Russians with large wooden houses, we repeat, artistic crafts developed, dating back to time immemorial. Gradually, over the centuries, technology has changed, improving, but the themes of images, drawings and signs applied to handicrafts were protected by tradition. They were not changed, because they all carried a semantic load, had a certain meaning, often magical, incantatory, and were a reflection of the concepts of life and death, the acquisition of offspring, the preservation of property, the reproduction of livestock, the ripening of the crop. It was scary to change them, since magic played a leading role in the beliefs of the pagans, and these drawings and these signs had to be sacredly protected, as evidenced by at least the simple fact that they have survived in folk art to this day. The plot language, the language of symbols, in this art aroused heightened interest, but the main attention in the works of scientists is paid to identifying and explaining images of a female and male deity, found even in late Russian embroidery – this is a clear relic of paganism. It is interesting that such a female deity (and perhaps this is a praying woman) is almost exactly repeated in Russian embroideries and on Indian fabrics and ritual objects, which is not a simple coincidence (N. R. Guseva. Deep roots. Sat «Roads millennium» M. 1991). Since ancient times, in Russian and other Slavic embroideries, there are many geometric motifs, which, along with other themes, also lead us into deep antiquity, which means that some lines of history can be traced along them.
Russian folk embroidery has been attracting the attention of researchers for over a century.
At the end of the last century, a number of brilliant collections of this type of folk art were formed, and the first attempts were made to read complex «plot» compositions, especially characteristic of the folk traditions of the Russian North.
There have appeared many interesting works devoted to the analysis of the plot-symbolic language, the peculiarities of technology and religious differences in Russian folk embroidery.
However, most of these works focus on anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images, archaic three-part compositions that include, as already mentioned, a stylized and transformed image of a man – a female (more often) or male (less often) pre-Christian deity. Geometric motifs of North Russian embroidery stand somewhat apart, usually accompanying the main detailed plot compositions, although very often in the design of towels, belts, hemlines, sleeves and shoulder shirts, it is geometric motifs that are the main and only ones, which are extremely important for researchers. By the way, the analysis of the patterns of local traditional laces also deserves a lot of attention from this point of view. About archaic geometry in Russian ornamental art and the need for its careful study Academician B. A. Rybakov and in his works of the 60s – 70s, and in his profound work on the paganism of the ancient Slavs, published in 1981, the idea of the invariable depths of popular memory, which preserves in itself and carries through the centuries in the images of embroidery, carving for wood, toys, etc. the most ancient ideological schemes, rooted in unknown millennia.
In this regard, the collections of the museums of the Russian North are very valuable, i.e. those places where one can say the eternal remoteness from state centers, as well as a relatively peaceful existence (the Vologda region, for example, in its northeastern part, practically did not know wars), an abundance of forests and the protection of many settlements by swamps and impassable roads – all this contributed to the preservation for an immeasurable a number of 40 centuries of the most ancient forms of life and economy, respect for the faith of fathers and grandfathers, and, as