Yelets: Lace, Crafts and Museums

For centuries, Yelets has been known for its lace-making and pottery traditions, leatherworking and blacksmithing, woodcarving, weaving, and the Yelets piano accordion. The Museum of Folk Arts and Crafts showcases this variety: its exhibits include leatherworking, blacksmithing, pottery and felt-making, as well as basket weaving, woodcarving, embroidery and bast-shoe weaving. In the especially popular Yelets lace room, you can see lace patterns being created using bobbin lace-making.

Experience Lace and Crafts

The techniques behind lace-making are also brought to life: lace-maker Larisa Petrovna Popova introduces visitors to the tools required and demonstrates her skills in the centre of the room. The museum also offers workshops in weaving, bobbin lace-making, embroidery, beadwork, fabric doll-making and patchwork. Ask at the museum for current details. Working with pressed flowers is another technique you can learn about at the museum. The educational programme also includes consultations, themed tours, lectures, discussions and quizzes.

The building itself adds to the picture of the city’s history. Built before 1918 of red brick in the Art Nouveau style, it was designed by the architect Vilfart. Majolica tiles and a mural depicting a pelican above its nest form part of the decoration; the pelican is a symbol of motherhood and childhood. The building was constructed as a nursery and home for the children of women working at a tobacco factory. The project’s patron was Yelets merchant Alexander Nikolayevich Zausailov, the last owner of a tobacco factory. The museum opened in this building on 18 May 2007.

Art Collections and House Museums

The art department of the Yelets City Museum of Local Lore first opened to visitors on 4 December 1981. It displays more than 300 works of art, including paintings, prints, sculptures, ceramics, art glass and antique furniture. Alongside the applied arts, visitors can also explore a wide-ranging art collection.

The N. N. Zhukov House Museum offers general and themed tours. Visitors can also watch films about the artist’s work and view video exhibitions. The T. N. Khrennikov House Museum displays items from the collection of Tikhon Nikolayevich Khrennikov: manuscripts, piano reductions, scores, books bearing the composer’s autograph, photographs, paintings and audio recordings. This house museum also offers general and themed tours. You can choose between art collections, tours and audiovisual offerings according to your interests.

Landscapes and Nature in Lipetsk Oblast

At the regional level, Yelets lace is one of the seven traditional crafts and traditions of Lipetsk Oblast listed in the Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Galichya Gora Nature Reserve offers a distinctive natural and landscape attraction. Its six separate sections are surrounded by developed and cultivated land. The reserve protects characteristic forest-steppe communities and groups of rock-dwelling plants on Devonian limestone outcrops in the valleys of the Don, Bystraya Sosna and their tributaries. Limestone cliffs shaped by water and wind rise along the right bank of the Don in the centre of Lipetsk Oblast. Galichya Gora was the first nature reserve in the Central Black Earth Region and is one of the smallest nature reserves in the world.

The Lipetsk Regional Museum of Natural History is located on the reserve’s central estate and is visited by thousands of day-trippers each year. Its open-air area includes an alpine plant garden with rare species, a bird of prey breeding station and a medicinal herb garden. Check whether this open-air area is currently accessible before your visit.

Another park in Lipetsk Oblast is Kudykina Gora in Zadonsky District, a recreational, landscape and dendrological park. It is home to the sculpture Zmey Gorynych: a 15-metre-high, three-headed figure with a pointed tail, claws and scales.

Discover more destinations: Devitsa, Chaplygin, Sreznevo, Gryaznoye, Lebedyan, Podgornoye, Koptsevy Khutora, Krasnoye.

For the wider travel overview: Lipetsk Oblast.