The exhibition introduces the forgotten and largely lost wedding traditions of the Russian people, reminds of their origins and content. Visitors will see examples of decorative and applied art from the collection of the State Historical Museum, including everyday objects related to the wedding ceremony, paintings, costumes.

The Russian wedding ceremony, which is an important part of the everyday and spiritual culture of the people, was formed by the XVI century and remained the household norm for all social strata of society until the end of the XVII century. With a wide variety of local variants and details in peasant culture, it persisted until the beginning of the 20th century. Individual elements of the wedding tradition, ancient words and phrases denoting traditional actions are also used in the modern wedding ceremony.

In the XVIII — early XX century, the traditional marriage ceremony consisted of three stages: the pre-wedding, the actual wedding and the post-wedding. At the first stage, a decision was made on marriage, preparations were made for a solemn day and the ritual transition of a young man and a girl to another social and age category began. At the second stage, wedding ceremonies were performed, the wedding and celebration of this event, the legal and physical sealing of the marriage union. The third stage was the final one, when the newlyweds were confirmed in their new status.

Visitors will see icons of the XVII century, church crowns, traditional festive clothes, girls’ and women’s headdresses, including Tula ones. The preparation of the dowry, the wedding train and the wedding feast — these wedding stages will be presented at the exhibition with authentic everyday objects — colorful examples of folk art.

The subject complexes are complemented by a documentary and pictorial series, including rare graphic images and paintings. Visitors will see unique exhibits from the collection of the State Historical Museum, including a manuscript illustrated with miniatures describing the wedding of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich in 1626. Among the exhibits threre are “marriage” documents: books of marriage searches of Nikolo-Zaretsky (XVIII century) and Bogoroditsk-Nativity Churches of Tula (late XIX century), painting of the dowry provided by the State Archive of the Tula region.

In the multimedia part of the exhibition, you can see vintage photos of weddings from the collection of the SHM, as well as wedding photos of Tula residents sent to our branch during the “Wedding Album” campaign.