Mykolaiv Oblast

Mykolaiv embroidery has two layers: traditional red and black stylised plant motifs, such as sosonky, oak leaves and hop cones, and the new Tavrian painting style in blue, light blue and white with ochre. A hallmark of the region is the shuba motif on the chest of the shirt.

In autumn 2025 craftswomen from Mykolaiv submitted Tavrian painting for inclusion in Ukraine's National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. This is not a finished story about the Mykolaiv vyshyvanka - it is still being written right now.

Painting that became embroidery

Tavrian painting is a local tradition that the researcher and embroiderer Ruslana Sikalenko is carrying over into embroidery. The Mykolaiv vyshyvanka in this new style has its own colour scheme: blue, pale blue and white with touches of ochre, quite unlike the rest of the region's ornaments.

The symbolism is its own too, not typical of the rest of Ukraine: lighthouses, waves, little boats - things seen every day in a port and seaside land rather than abstract generalised signs. Alongside them there is also the tree of life, a national symbol that links the local tradition with the Ukrainian one as a whole.

From geometry to cross-stitch: Mykolaiv embroidery ornament

Until the middle of the 19th century, geometric forms prevailed in Mykolaiv embroidery ornament; they have survived above all in weaving - a documented example is the village of Lysa Hora in the Pervomaisk area, where the old techniques were not displaced by the later fashion for plant forms.

At the beginning of the 20th century, geometry was gradually displaced by cross-stitch. The basis of the Mykolaiv vyshyvanka in this period is stylised plant motifs: little pines, oak leaves, hop cones, flowering branches, and alongside them animal elements whose form is conventional - more a sign than a realistic image.

The "shuba" motif and the dividing line

A pattern of its own here is the "shuba" (fur coat): several lines that symbolically represent a fur coat, placed on the chest of the shirt as a decorative element. None of the other 26 regions we describe has such a motif, and it makes the Mykolaiv vyshyvanka recognisable even to a specialist from another region.

Another local detail is the dividing line. According to tradition, it symbolised the border between good and evil, or the earth itself, but there is no documentary evidence for this.

Colours of Mykolaiv Oblast embroidery

Red and black traditionally prevail in the Mykolaiv vyshyvanka, sometimes with grey or grey-blue - a muted shade, rare in Ukrainian embroidery, which softens the overall contrast rather than heightening it.

Separately, there is the Tavrian palette already mentioned - blue, pale blue and white with ochre. These two colour worlds, the old steppe one and the new one, together make up what the Mykolaiv vyshyvanka is today - not one tradition but two that coexist.

The Mykolaiv region among the Black Sea regions

The Odesa, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions share a common geography but differ in the character of their ornament. The Mykolaiv vyshyvanka stands out for combining two layers at once - old stylised geometry and the new Tavrian painting, which is still taking shape before our eyes.

A land of settlers: why there is no single Mykolaiv shirt

The Mykolaiv Regional Museum of Local History holds more than 200 embroidered shirts collected in the region, but their patterns, colours and techniques differ. "Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a Mykolaiv embroidered shirt," explains museum staff member Svitlana Romanenko.

The main reason is settlement. As the region developed industrially at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 20th century, people came here from the Poltava, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions and from Podillia, and they continued the traditions of their home regions. Men's shirts were also richly embroidered with floral and geometric ornaments.

The ethnographer Volodymyr Shchybria, director of the Centre of Folklore and Ethnography at the Institute of Philology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, adds that the south of Ukraine is a region where traditional dress fell out of use as early as the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, so little information about Mykolaiv embroidery has survived.

Brocard flowers in the south

According to Shchybria, at the beginning of the 20th century cross-stitch prevailed in the Mykolaiv region: roses, carnations, violets - the so-called Brocard embroidery. It was mostly done in red and black threads, but these colours, the ethnographer stresses, carried no special symbolic meaning. We tell how the Brocard style spread across Ukraine on the page about Kyiv city embroidery.

Symbols of Tavrian embroidery

Tavrian painting was first studied back in the 1960s by the journalist Yevheniia Bondarenko. When transferring it to fabric, craftswomen chose satin stitch because it best imitates the movement of a brush. The craftswoman Liubov Paraniuk explains the symbols: a little boat means a friend and helper, the matula means luck and fate, fish mean prosperity, big waves the power of life, birds freedom and love.

Southern embroidery according to Valentyna Dymova

Valentyna Dymova, an Honoured Master of Folk Art of Ukraine, has embroidered since childhood; her mother taught her the craft, and she is a member of the "Prybuzhzhia" art association. Speaking to Suspilne, she described what southern embroidery should be like: multicoloured, with bright green spring colours and summer ones slightly muted, as if by the steppe sun. The main ornament, she says, is the star.

The Mykolaiv Regional Centre of Folk Art explains that the southern region includes the Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kherson regions. In the Mykolaiv region shirts were made in various cuts, with narrow or wide stand-up collars. Women's shirts of the south had a square neckline and loose sleeves without gathers or cuffs, and they were embroidered in red, black, grey and blue threads. So the Mykolaiv vyshyvanka differed in its cut even before the pattern.

A guide from Kutsurub

The Tavrian line of the Mykolaiv vyshyvanka has a specific source of inspiration. The artist Liubov Paraniuk from the village of Kutsurub in the Ochakiv area wrote the guide "Tavrian Painting", on whose motifs vyshyvankas are now created. Since 11 March 2023 a new stage of the "Mykolaiv Vyshyvanka with Tavrian Painting" project has been under way in the region, and a shirt with Tavrian motifs has already been embroidered within it.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tavrian painting?

A distinctive local decorative tradition with lighthouses, waves and little boats. The researcher and craftswoman Ruslana Sikalenko is transferring it to embroidery in a blue, light blue and white palette with ochre, and in autumn 2025 the painting was submitted for inclusion in the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

What does the "shuba" motif mean?

It is a few lines on the chest of the shirt that symbolically represent a fur coat. None of the other 26 regions described on the site has such a decorative element.

Why does Mykolaiv embroidery vary so much?

Because it combines several layers: the old geometry that dominated until the mid-19th century, the stylised plant motifs in cross stitch of the early 20th century, and the entirely new Tavrian tradition, which is still taking shape.

Is there a distinct Mykolaiv embroidered shirt?

According to Svitlana Romanenko of the regional museum, no. The region was settled by people from the Poltava, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions and Podillia, who continued their own traditions, so the shirts in the museum's holdings are very different.

What should southern embroidery be like?

According to Valentyna Dymova, an Honoured Master of Folk Art, multicoloured: with bright green spring colours and muted summer ones, and with the star as the main ornament.

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