Exhibition complex 'Museum of House Paintings of Povazhye'

About museum

Exhibition complex 'Museum of House Paintings of Povazhye' was opened on November 2, 2018 on the basis of the regional cultural heritage site 'Kichev M. M. House', which was moved from the village of Zaruchye, Lipovskoye municipal formation, Velsky District, to the premises of the Velsky Local History Museum.

The house was built in 1884 by the peasant Semyon Babkin in the village of Lemen'ga (now Lipovskoye municipal formation, Velsky District) and represented a traditional Povazhye five-walled house with a balcony on the main façade. In the same year the house was painted by a cooperative of local painters — the Petrovsky family from the village of Churkovskaya, Voskresenskaya volost, Shenkursky uyezd (now Blagoveshchenskoye municipal formation, Velsky District), who in the second half of the 19th century created an entire school of house painting on the Vaga River.

The gable and the tympanum above the tower window are covered with foliate ornament. On either side of the balcony a lion and a unicorn are depicted — the Petrovskys' distinctive emblem. In front of the unicorn figure are the letters 'S. B.', and in front of the lion's head — the date '1884'.

In the interior of the izba the stove area (opechek), doors and door linings, the matitsa and the ceiling in the front part of the main chamber are covered with foliate ornament. On the chamber ceiling, framed by white-and-blue patterns, there is a large six-petaled rosette with blue, red and yellow petals.