Cherkasy Oblast

Cherkasy embroidery is recognised by horizontal pattern lines on the sleeves, a rare choice in Ukraine, and by delicate work in tiny stitches that build up a complex geometric pattern. Ethnologist Yakiv Prylypko placed the Cherkasy region in the zone of two-colour embroidery.

In 1991 the folklorist and Doctor of Cultural Studies Svitlana Kytova started collecting work at the Faculty of Philology of the Cherkasy Pedagogical Institute - first-year students on field practice began bringing back fabrics, vyshyvankas of the Cherkasy region and household objects from the villages. This is how the history of what is now called the Museum of the Ukrainian Rushnyk began.

A collection that was lost

Not all of the collection gathered by Kytova has survived: some of the expedition materials are already lost to today's researchers. It is a reminder that even a well-documented Cherkasy vyshyvanka can partly disappear if what has been collected is not properly stored in time.

All the more valuable is what has survived: today the museum has its own folklore and ethnography laboratory and a research circle, publishes studies and runs a travelling exhibition. The museum's director, N. M. Yarmolenko, together with students, still gives tours for everyone interested in the vyshyvanka of the Cherkasy region.

A museum that grew out of one anniversary

For the anniversary of Taras Shevchenko, Cherkasy National University opened the Museum of the Ukrainian Rushnyk, where the Cherkasy vyshyvanka of different periods is also presented. Today it holds more than a thousand items - woven and embroidered rushnyky, tablecloths, men's, women's and children's costumes, spinning wheels and parts of looms.

Cherkasy embroidery ornament got a museum of its own because of Shevchenko: he was born in the village of Moryntsi in the Cherkasy region.

The Uman area: where two traditions meet

The contemporary embroiderer Nataliia Kramna-Taran shows through her own work how different the Cherkasy vyshyvanka can be even within one region. At her exhibition, one rushnyk is typical of the Middle Dnipro area, while two others come from the Uman district, which lies on the border between Eastern Podillia and the Dnipro area.

To make it clearer, she dresses motanka dolls in traditional clothing, because a full costume takes a lot of time and fabric, while a doll quickly shows what the Cherkasy vyshyvanka of a particular village was like, without waiting months for a full outfit to be sewn.

Cherkasy embroidery ornament: fine stitches and horizontal lines

A distinctive feature of Cherkasy embroidery ornament is the horizontal arrangement of pattern lines on the sleeves, a rare compositional choice compared with the rest of Ukraine. The second hallmark is delicate embroidery in fine stitches that make up an intricate geometric pattern.

Two-colour Cherkasy on Prylypko's map

Ethnologist Yakiv Prylypko, founder of the "Historical and Ethnographic Atlas of Ukrainian Clothing", mapped the colour of embroidery on women's shirts of the late 19th and early 20th century. According to his conclusion, cited by Liudmyla Ponomar (2024), the Kyiv and Cherkasy regions are marked by almost continuous two-colour embroidery, while the Chernihiv and Poltava regions embroidered in one colour.

Another boundary from the atlas matters for the Cherkasy vyshyvanka: red prevailed on the Right Bank, white on the Left Bank, and the line between them ran along the Dnipro. The Cherkasy region lies on both banks, so Prylypko's line runs straight through the oblast.

Subotiv: gold and cherry

The village of Subotiv stands apart, with golden and cherry shades prevailing - warmer and richer than the main Cherkasy palette of white, red and black. Subotiv has its own historical weight: it was the residence of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, and the local version of the Cherkasy Oblast vyshyvanka developed alongside this history, not in isolation from it.

The Cherkasy region within the Dnipro area

The Cherkasy, Kyiv and Kirovohrad regions belong to the Middle Dnipro area and are described using a shared source. But they arrive at different solutions: the Kyiv region is best known for the Brocard line with plant cross-stitch, the Kirovohrad region for realistic details down to "the shine of the grapes", and the Cherkasy vyshyvanka is the most geometric and the most restrained in colour of the three.

Embroidery from the Lesia Ukrainka factory

In January 2022 the Cherkasy local history museum showed the embroidery art of the Cherkasy region from the 1980s and early 1990s: more than fifty parts of women's and men's shirts. They were made by the embroiderers of the Lesia Ukrainka sewing factory in Cherkasy, and the artists had once collected the sample patterns on expeditions to villages. Some of those expedition materials are now in the museum as well.

Honoured Artist of Ukraine Oleksandra Telizhenko, who worked at the factory, calls these pieces virtuoso work: fine thread, sheer fabric, the "Thyme" series made from her drawing. Embroiderer Nataliia Kramna-Taran, an embroidery artist at the factory for more than 20 years, lists the old techniques of the Cherkasy vyshyvanka in this collection: nightingale eyes, counted satin stitch, chain stitch and many kinds of drawn-thread work. One shirt took two to three months of eight-hour working days.

So that the patterns would not be lost, Volodymyr Zhukovets from Cherkasy recreated every stitch in charts and, with the artists' permission, gave them to the Taras Shevchenko regional library, including in electronic form. So Cherkasy embroidery ornament from this collection can be embroidered today by anyone.

A second museum: artistic, not only ethnographic

Besides the university's rushnyk museum, the halls of the Cherkasy Regional Art Museum present embroidery of the Middle Dnipro area alongside pottery from several centres of the region - Holovkivka, Pastyrske, Hromy and Hnylets.

This means that the Cherkasy vyshyvanka is presented in the region in at least two different museum contexts at once: as part of a living folk tradition in the university collection, and as an object of art alongside other crafts in the art museum.

A hundred shirts at the art museum and two hundred in Chyhyryn

The Cherkasy Regional Art Museum holds more than a hundred vyshyvankas, mostly from the Middle Dnipro area of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and for Vyshyvanka Day the museum showed them in an online exhibition. According to the museum, embroidering one shirt could take anything from two weeks to three years. More than two hundred shirts from the late 19th to the first half of the 20th century are kept by the Chyhyryn National Historical and Cultural Reserve; that collection was built up on ethnographic expeditions.

In the villages of Moshny and Baibuzy in the Cherkasy district, local researchers write, embroidery "from a drawing", tambour, stem stitch and shtapivka were common, while on the Left Bank Cherkasy shirts were more often decorated with cutwork.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Cherkasy have a towel museum at a university?

Because it grew out of student expeditions. In 1991 the folklorist Svitlana Kytova began collecting work at the philology faculty of the Cherkasy Pedagogical Institute, and the towel museum was opened for an anniversary of Taras Shevchenko, a native of the Cherkasy region. Today it holds more than a thousand items.

How does Subotiv differ from the rest of the region?

In its warmer palette: golden and cherry shades dominate here instead of the main Cherkasy range of white, red and black. Subotiv was also the residence of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and the local embroidery developed alongside that history.

What is special about the composition of Cherkasy embroidery?

The horizontal placement of pattern lines on the sleeves, which is rare elsewhere in Ukraine. The second hallmark is the fine stitches that make up an intricate geometric pattern.

Can you embroider a Cherkasy shirt from old charts?

Yes. Volodymyr Zhukovets from Cherkasy turned the embroidery of the Lesia Ukrainka factory shirts of the 1980s and early 1990s into charts and gave them to the Taras Shevchenko Cherkasy regional library, including in electronic form.

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