The Russian Ethnographic Museum will show an exhibition about silk in two Chinese cities

The Russian Ethnographic Museum (REM) will present an exhibition on silk in the national cultures of Eurasia in China, the Nanshan Museum in Shenzhen and then the Hubei Province Museum in Wuhan will be the venues for the display, said Yulia Kupina, director of the REM.

The project is part of the program of the cross-Cultural Years of Russia and China. "The REM collections have arrived at the Nanshan Museum in Shenzhen, unpacking is underway today, and installation will begin. The exhibition will be opened on August 2 as part of the Years of Culture of Russia and China," Kupina said at a press conference at the TASS St. Petersburg press center. "This is a really big event for us." The Cocoon of Traditions exhibition was presented at the REM in 2023 and aroused great interest among colleagues from China who visited it during the Forum of United Cultures in St. Petersburg, after which discussions began on its display in China. "Of course, we don't carry the same exhibition. Keeping the name, we adapt it, redo it, select it together with our colleagues," she said. The preparation of the project lasted more than six months. The exposition will present about 300 valuable exhibits from the museum's collections. Among them are robes made of famous Chinese silk, silk carpets of Iran, gold-woven belts of Slutsk manufactories, richly embroidered silk clothes of the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga region. "Of course, we show the North Caucasus, where there were centers of silk weaving and sericulture. <...> These are both costumes and unique scarves. We also show the stunning silks of Central Asia, where unique sericulture centers still exist, we show the most valuable silk costumes - men's and women's," added the director of the museum. The exhibition at the Nanshan Museum will run until November 10, and from November 22 to February 16, 2025, it is planned to be presented at the Hubei Provincial Museum. There is also an active parallel program with curatorial classes for specialists, public lectures by museum experts and other events. The Nanshan Museum, founded in 2014, is dedicated to the preservation of archaeological sites, as well as the theme of the Maritime Silk Road. The Hubei Provincial Museum, established in 1953, is considered one of the largest local history museums in China, writes TASS.