Museum of Russia’s Komi Republic to host Grodno wedding traditions exhibition

“The exhibition is based on materials from a temporary display that ran at the museum in September 2025. Arranged chronologically, it explores the traditions of wedding ceremonies from the 19th to the early 21st century through the lens of Grodno’s traditional culture, allowing visitors to trace the evolution of the bride and groom’s attire,” Daria Kisel said.

According to her, the museums have been cooperating since 2022. The first project was implemented to mark the 25th anniversary of the public organization Belarusian National-Cultural Autonomy of the Komi Republic. The National Museum of the Komi Republic presented a multimedia project titled as Belarusian Textiles of the Late 1940s–1950s, created from its own collection. The exhibition showcases a textile collection made by Galina Chechko in the mid-20th century in her native village of Pogost, Gomel Oblast. The collection demonstrates a variety of decorating techniques, color schemes, and patterns, providing insight into the weaving, embroidery, and folk textiles of Eastern Polesie during the post-war decade.

The Grodno State Museum of History and Archaeology presented the online exhibition Belarusian Traditions: Pottery Craft of Ponemanie, created from its museum collection of earthenware. The project showcases traditional folk tableware of Grodno Oblast from the 19th and 20th centuries, featuring black-fired, scalded, and glazed ceramics: ranging from kitchenware and tableware to food storage vessels and decorative items.

The second stage of cooperation continued the ethnographic line of dialogue, expanding it from crafts to the imagery system of traditional culture. The National Museum of the Komi Republic prepared a virtual guided exhibition titled as Traditional Culture of the Komi People in Life Cycle Rituals of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries, introducing the spiritual and material culture of the people through the key stages of the human life cycle. The interactive format of the tour allows viewers to independently map out their route of exploring the nation’s culture and even listen to the audio guide. Meanwhile, the Grodno museum presented the project Vytynanka: From Tradition to Modernity, which brought together traditional paper cuts from the early 20th century and works by leading contemporary Belarusian masters.

At the next stage of cooperation, the National Museum of the Komi Republic presented the exhibition dedicated to the memory of the People’s Master of Russia Vasily Popov. The online exposition includes video recordings of guided tours and three-dimensional models of products made from burls and swirls – growths on tree trunks and roots that are highly valued for their unique wood texture. Meanwhile, the Russian audience was able to discover the exhibition Rushniks of Prinemanie, which explores the role of the traditional embroidered towel in the local folk culture as an attribute of wedding and calendar rituals, as well as an everyday household item.

The fourth exchange cycle in 2025 juxtaposed two themes: the world of women’s handicrafts and the history of regional industry. The Russian exhibition Woman: Mother, Artisan, Beauty was created based on the finest examples from the collection of traditional women’s handicrafts of the Finno-Ugric peoples, sourced from the open storage collection of the museum’s ethnography department. The project reveals women’s culture as a mirror of ethnic identity: traditional costumes, weaving, embroidery, and knitting items reflect both the distinctive traits of the people and shared characteristics, influences, and borrowings with related ethnic groups.

In Grodno, an online exhibition titled Creating Brands: Grodno Enterprises of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries was prepared, immersing viewers into the history of the industrial formation of Prinemanie. The exposition showcases unique aspects of the establishment of major enterprises in the region, including the Shereshevsky tobacco factory, Glassworks Neman, the Grodno bicycle factory, the Grodno brewery, the Lapin playing card factory, and the Neman binding products factory.

Daria Kisel noted that all the digital dialogue projects are publicly accessible. The online exhibitions can be viewed on the museums’ official websites.

In her view, the mutual exchange of virtual exhibitions is a highly sought-after form of international museum cooperation. The experience of the dialogue between Grodno and Syktyvkar shows that the digital format allows museums to maintain cultural ties, reach new audiences, and strengthen interregional cooperation.