 Fancy-work of Nizhegorodskaya oblast appeared at the end of the 19th. At first embroideresses worked for buyers who provided St. Petersburg and Moscow shops with goods. They embroidered in stitch of white colour and decorated their embroidery with simple patterns, such as "pshentso", "mushka" and others. At the beginning of the 20th century "guipure" and ' Japanese stitch" were employed.
In the early years of the Soviet power local embroideresses began to work in cooperation with each other. Katunki artel, one of the first embroidery artels of that time was founded in 1924 and up to the 1960s it was independent. Later Nova, Purekhov and other artels were set up. In 1937 an artel named after Chkalov was founded in  Chkalovsk, and in 1960 it was transformed into Chkalovsk embroidery factory, which combined several artels together, including Katunki one.
The ancient settlement Katunki is located on the bank of the beautiful Volga river. "Po vydergu', a kind of stitch embroidery made at hand, was used here from the end of the 18th century, all women and children were engaged in it. Nowadays a Public Limited Company keeps on embroidering 'Gorky guipure', which first appeared in Katunki settlement.
Gorky guipure is embroidered in white hemstitch. It is different from cross-stitcher as it is open-work. It contains many geometrical figures in the shape of rhombuses, but their corners are round. Geometrical figures are combined with elements of vegetation, such as twigs of berries, leaves and others.
Gorky guipure has some ch aracteristic features, such as long stitches made with the usage of soft white threads. When using machine all stitches are made diagonally in the oblong shape. The technology of embroidery developed in the 18th century became traditional and it is possible to create real Gorky guipure only by hand.
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Culture and Art 