Paintings on fish skin, carpets made of drakes: what people came up with near the Amur (5 photos)

The peoples who traditionally lived along the banks of high-water rivers and seas not only ate fish, but also used it to make various items.





Just as reindeer herders for centuries ate venison and made shoes and clothing from reindeer skin, the peoples who settled along the banks of reservoirs made bags, belts, and shoes from fish skin and scales.

Fish-skinned people



Fish skin handbag

The peoples of the Far East have been hunters and fishermen for centuries. The Great Amur fed and clothed the people who lived along its banks. The Nanais, Negidals, Nivkhs, Udeges and other peoples knew how not only to prepare fish for future use, but also to make a festive robe, mittens, sails, bags and even warm shoes out of leather. It is not for nothing that in Chinese sources the Amur peoples were called “yuy-pitadze”, which translated means “foreigners dressing in fish skins.” Masters in the old days knew the secret of how to make fish skin durable, strong, waterproof and heat-retaining. Today, only a few craftsmen who continue folk traditions know these secrets. These days you can buy a clutch or wallet made of fish skin, a painting for the wall or something else for the interior.

What does an artist need besides a leather grinder?

Work by Veronica Osipova

Contemporary artist Elena Kile from Khabarovsk adopted the secrets of the craft from her fellow countrymen and relatives. Born in an ancient Nanai village, little Lena saw from childhood how her mother embroidered, her grandfather carved Nanai perfumes from wood, and her grandmother weaved mats from reeds, made boxes from birch bark, amazing carpets from drake skins and elegant robes, bedspreads and headbands from fish skin. . Watching adults work, and sometimes helping them, Lena learned how to process leather.

The process of tanning leather is very labor-intensive and takes at least 15 hours. Gutted fish is air dried, then the skin is removed with a special knife and scraped. Today they degrease the skin using products that are usually used to wash dishes, but not so long ago this was done using clay and sawdust. After all, the skin is stretched on wooden boards and dried.



When the leather is thoroughly dry, it must be processed in a wooden leather grinder to make it soft and pliable. Then you can sew the flaps together with threads from the tendons and apply patterns. To obtain various colors, natural substances were usually used: to obtain dark brown or black colors, crushed chum salmon or pike caviar was mixed with soot; for blue and blue colors, blue azure petals were used.

But in general, fish skin itself has a variety of colors: the skin of the catfish is black, sometimes golden, the skin of the chum salmon acquires a reddish tint over time, and the skin of the carp, if its skin is properly tanned in the cold, becomes white, so it was used for festive wedding robes . Tools for making a painting include stationery pens, brushes, pencils, pruning shears, scissors, chisels, carving knives, as well as a hair dryer for smoothing the skin.

World recognition



There are several techniques for dressing fish skin and applying designs on it. There are few artists engaged in this rare art today, but they are known not only in Russia, but also abroad. For example, Elena Kiele's works are kept in private collections around the world. When she once brought 50 of her works to Canada, they were all sold out. Such unusual and original paintings can be found in museums in the USA, Germany, China, Japan and at exhibitions held in Russia. Have you been to at least one of these?