But, of course, the traditions of jewelry art in the republic span more than a century. Silver jewelry has always been part of the national women’s costume, which could tell a lot about its owner. The decorations that the girls used in different areas differed. When she got married, a woman changed her outfit and hairstyle. And, of course, jewelry charms, which promised protection and good luck, were popular.
Not surprisingly, the status of master jewelers in Buryatia was very high. On the one hand, he was associated with the secrets of blacksmithing. It is enough to remember the skillful blacksmith god Hephaestus to guess how far the cult of craftsmen who have worked with metal and fire for thousands of years has reached. On the other hand, jewelers who made amulets were perceived as magicians who possessed sacred knowledge. In a word, the Buryat jewelers were both priests and blacksmiths.
Photo: Press Service of the Museum of Oriental Art
The rarest items in the Museo de Oriente collection provide an opportunity to see not only the subtle variability and variety of decorative motifs, but also the different traditions that the masters continued. Someone worked in the Buddhist traditions. Someone used the motives of the neighboring Chinese culture. Other works kept the memory of the distant archaic, the cults of the ancestors.
In Buryatia, jewelry that combined silver and corals was especially valued. The exposition promises to show the traditional decorations of the Transbaikalia Buryats of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. There will also be items from the Soviet era, created in the wake of the revival of national traditions and crafts.
And in old photographs you can see at what moments in life these jewelry were worn. Showing national costumes, household items will help to imagine a world in which man and nature felt like a single whole, where sensitivity, tact and a wise and careful attitude towards all living things were absorbed with milk. maternal.
