Gorodets Painting

Gorodets painting started on spinning-wheel bottoms in the nineteenth century - flat boards decorated for sale at the fair - and grew into a style of its own: black horses with arched necks, birds, flowers, and scenes of merchants at tea or on horseback, painted in bright unshaded colour with white highlights added last, on a yellow or red ground. It reads as narrative rather than ornament, which sets it apart from most Russian folk painting. The town also has carved house decoration, deep-cut window frames and gable boards, on wooden houses along the streets above the Volga; a museum quarter now gathers several small museums, including one for the painting and one for pryanik, the printed honey gingerbread pressed in carved boards which Gorodets has made for two centuries. The town sits high on the left bank with a long view across the water, and there is a working workshop where painters can be watched.

What you actually see

• The narrative painting - horses, birds and tea-party scenes in flat bright colour.
• The carved houses - deep-cut window frames and gable boards on wooden streets.
• The gingerbread boards - carved moulds for pressing printed pryanik.
• The Volga bank - the town high above the river with a long view.

When to go

May to September, when river boats call. Half a day for the museum quarter.

Honest expectations

The museum quarter is several small museums with separate tickets and short hours. Labelling is Russian. Souvenir stalls sell printed imitations alongside hand-painted work. Bus connections from Nizhny Novgorod are slow.

Nearby

Semyonov and its khokhloma works are east; Nizhny Novgorod is downriver.