On February 15, 2025, the exhibition "Baranovsky Calico" opens in the Holy Trinity Stefan-Makhrishch Stavropol Convent.
The exhibition takes place in the monastery cultural center "Makhrishchskie crafts". The exhibition features 19th-century fabrics and shawls made at the merchants Baranov manufactory 5 km from the monastery.
The Mahrishch monastery has a long-term friendship with the Baranov factory. The factory was closely involved in the restoration of the monastery. (Since 1993).
The exhibits of the exhibition are provided from the funds of the Houses of Culture of G. Karabanov. The exhibition will run until February 23.
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Tikhon Petrovich Baranov, a bourgeois of Catherine's time, is considered to be the founder of the dynasty. In autumn and winter, he himself sat at the loom and sold canvas in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. His son, merchant Nikolai Tikhonovich, born in 1743, was engaged not only in weaving, but also dyed linen fabrics at home. In addition to trading in krasheninny Ryad, he had a "place in the city magistrate as a ratman," that is, he participated in the affairs of the city administration, where only rich merchants were allowed.
Thanks to their wit, business sense and delight in the "benefits and benefits", the Baranovs multiplied step by step the accumulated wealth of their ancestors. And now Fyodor Nikolaevich, who was listed as a merchant of the third guild, which gave the right to "trade in the city and county," expanded the inheritance business. He began to engage not only in weaving, but also, as the famous Alexandrovsky local historian Pavel Khmelevsky writes, "he began to buy up the fabrics they had made from artisanal lightworkers in the villages of the county and resell them at fairs in Moscow, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod." However, all the capital he earned was lost during the Patriotic War of 1812.
After recovering from the blow, Fyodor Nikolaevich started everything from scratch. And he succeeded again. Realizing that dyed fabrics were more expensive, in 1814, in his spacious new house, he set up a yarn and canvas dyeing plant in the most popular cubic (blue) color, as well as an office for distributing yarn to peasant homes. By 1818, the business had expanded to a small factory "for weaving simple shawls, nankeen and canvas," which became one of the first in the county to switch from canvas to paper, that is, from linen to cotton fabric. This dyed fabric was called chintz.
Sixteen years later, Fyodor Baranov acquired "eternal and hereditary possession" of a plot of land on the banks of the Seroy River, where he built a dyeing establishment. It was here that the first chords of the symphony of red sounded – cotton yarn began to be dyed in Adrianople color. These chintzes were bright, did not fade in the sun and did not fade during washing. People joked that they would be demolished first and then fade away.
The color got its name from the city of Adrianople (now Edirne, Turkey), founded by the Roman emperor Hadrian, where the art of producing paints from madder flourished since ancient times. The powder from the crushed root of this plant, krapp, made it possible to obtain a whole palette of shades: from pink to brown. However, in the 19th century, the most popular shade for noble stoles and shawls, as well as for folk calico shawls and sundresses, was bright red, also known as crimson, cumin, and Adrianople.
Fyodor Baranov's decision to dye chintzes red was quite risky. "French krapp" – it was from France that the dye was imported to Russia – was quite expensive. In addition, it was extremely capricious during transportation, and the staining result was not always stable. Nevertheless, already in 1835, just a year after the start of the business on the Seroy River, Fyodor Nikolaevich received the medal "for good coloring of paper." And kumach calico, dyed with French krapp, was popularly called "French", although they were made in Russia. They were quite expensive, not every peasant woman could afford to buy a piece for a whole sundress, but many tried to decorate it with a small strip of bright cotton.