The beginning of the current week was marked by the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity, which is now widely celebrated in Russia. Symbolically, it was on July 8 that the chamber exhibition "Mistress of the Tsar's Sloboda" was presented to visitors in the authentic setting of the house-church of the Assumption.
"It introduces visitors to the life of the sloboda's sovereign women, their hobbies and occupations, and their fashion preferences. The astonishing world of the medieval woman is illustrated by items from the collections of the museum-reserve and Moscow collector S.A. Afonin. Precious jewelry, tableware, icon-face embroidery, and liturgical literature make it possible to create a tangible image and way of life of the tsar's chosen one in the capital," said Anastasia Lakiza, research associate of the Alexandrovskaya Sloboda museum-reserve and the exhibition's author.
A sovereign lady's day began with prayer and the reading of liturgical texts in the church or in her private chambers. The tsarinas' staple book was the Menaion, which contained prayers for each day of the month; because of frequent use only a few rare copies that once belonged to royal persons have survived. Such is the Menaion from the personal library of Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, mother of Peter I.
Needlework played an important role in the tsarina's daily routine. Ivan the Terrible's first wife, Anastasia Romanovna Zakharina, was a skilled embroiderer, especially in the technique known as "likovoe shitie" (icon-face embroidery). (Embroidering the faces of saints with gold and silver threads was a unique phenomenon in medieval Rus', in which noble-born women alone excelled.) A fine example of this art — the liturgical cover "Mother of God of the Sign" — is unusually harmonious within the space of the women's church.
Tsarinas strove for elegance in everything. Their rich garments of precious fabrics were complemented by pearl necklaces, bracelets, rings, buttons and especially earrings. At the height of fashion at the time were "troichatki" (with small prongs bearing stones extending from the hoop) and "golubtsy" (shaped like a bird; the word "golubka" itself signified the feminine principle, motherhood). The exhibited pieces demonstrate the skill of Russian jewelers and the fashion preferences of the sloboda beauties. Such jewels were stored in special little caskets that decorated the chamber's interior. This was complemented by tableware that the tsarinas received as gifts from the sovereign on the occasions of weddings, name-days, and the births of heirs.
