Shoes
Nizhny Novgorod Gubernia. Latter half of the 19th century
In the 19th century, the town of Arzamas in Nizhny Novgorod Gubernia was known throughout Russia for its cordwainers and furriers, and is still famous today for its felt. In the 1860s, ten thousand or more pairs of knitted shoes a year were manufactured in Arazmas, at St. Nicholas Monastery and in the Vyezdnaya Sloboda Village. Arzamas’s footwear was “manufactured and sold in millions”. Over a thousand Arzamas townspeople were employed in knitting shoes with felt inners, which was a mainly male occupation. Colorful flowers were skillfully knitted, and sometimes embroidered, onto shoes and boots. This type of footwear was perfectly suited to the silk, brocade and gold-embroidered local costume.