Palekh

Palekh is a small town in Ivanovo Oblast. A very artistic town, Palekh is the origin of the prominent 19th-century Palekh school of icon and mural painting, exhibited prominently at the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. In the 20th century the town distinguished itself by the innovation of distinctive lacquer painted miniatures, famous across Russia.

Understand

An example of Palekh's painted miniatures

Palekh is a small village, and everything interesting is concentrated in it on the central streets of Lenin and Bazhanov or within a radius of a couple of hundred meters from them. There is no public transport. An hour is enough for an external inspection of Palekh, although it would be a mistake not to look at the museums, so try to come here during the day and expect 3-4 hours.

Get in

By train

The nearest railway station is in Shuya, where the Lastochka stops four times a day, traveling from Moscow to Ivanovo. From Moscow to Shuya it takes a little over 3 hours, and then another half hour by bus. Buses run on average every half hour. The bus station is located in Shuya next to the station. The same route can be made through Ivanovo, but the railway and bus stations there are very far from each other, and there are not much more trains than in Shuya.

By bus

Ivanovo buses stop in Palekh and go to regional centers in the southeast of the region: Yuzha, Pestyaki, Puchezh, Verkhniy Landeh, and Nizhny Novgorod . Movement interval: 1-2 times per hour, travel time is no more than one and a half hours; all these buses make an intermediate stop in Shuya. Direct buses from Moscow run a couple of times a day (7 hours).

• 1 Bus station (Автовокзал), ul. Shuiskaya, 1 (next to Magnit), ☏ +7 49334 2-11-74. A small pavilion with a ticket office and a waiting room. (updated Feb 2019)

By car

The P152 highway passes through Palekh, connecting Ivanovo (65 km) and Nizhny Novgorod (180 km). The road from Palekh to the south is essentially a dead end and will be useful only to those who go to see Kholui or Yuzha.

See

Holy Cross Church

• 1 Holy Cross Church  (Крестовоздвиженская церковь), ul. Lenina, 59. A complex elongated silhouette, an elegant hipped bell tower and the lilac domes of the Holy Cross Churches. The church was built in 1762–1774 in the spirit of the Naryshkin baroque, which by that time had long gone out of fashion, but remained mainstream on Ivanovo land. All the churches here are like this, although the Palekh church is still unusual. Firstly, its creator Yegor Dubov is immortalized with a large inscription on the western wall. Secondly, the matter was not limited to the Dubov project: later the bell tower and the refectory were connected, chapels were added, and the structure acquired a completely intricate shape, the decor of which did not lag behind. On the eastern wall of the temple there used to be a composition “Elevation of the Cross”, created by the Salapin brothers in the middle of the 19th century and is now difficult to distinguish, so all that remains is to look at the interior, where the paintings made in 1807–1812 are well preserved. local artists under the leadership of the Muscovites Sapozhnikov brothers, as well as an iconostasis of the early 20th century, stylized as Baroque examples of the 18th century. All this is a good opportunity to see Palekh religious painting in its natural surroundings, unless, of course, you are disturbed by parishioners, of whom there are quite a lot here even when there are no services. (updated Oct 2019)

Elias Church

• 2 Elias Church (Ильинская церковь), ul. Gorky, 6. The second Palekh church was built in 1790, although to the eye it seems older than the Exaltation of the Cross. There is no Naryshkin baroque here, but instead the usual Russian style of the 17th century: poskonny, rough, but cute. The church stands in the center of a pretty public garden, with several old tombstones around it. (updated Jan 2016)
• Unfinished workshops (Недостроенные мастерские), ul. Pushkin. The colorful ruins of an unfinished red brick building are one of the reminders of late Soviet plans to transform Palekh into a major tourist center. The original project with a hexagonal turret and a slight Gothic tint was intended for an artel of Palekh craftsmen, which fortunately disintegrated with the onset of capitalism, when the need for a single workshop disappeared, so now the red sand-lime brick is spreading across the courtyards of local residents and, apparently, one day the building will disappear completely. (updated Aug 2019)
• 3 House of Culture (Дом культуры), ul. Bakanova, 19, ☏ +7 49334 2-29-91. Another interesting artifact of the Soviet era. Usually wooden houses of culture are a sign of northern villages, but the Ivanovo region is an exception or, perhaps, a corner of the Russian North lost on the map. The Palekh Palace of Culture is especially unusual because it was built in the 1950s. in the standard Stalinist style and is very reminiscent of a pre-revolutionary mansion, classicism without the prefix “neo”. (updated Dec 2018)
• 4 Chapel of Alexander Nevsky (Часовня Александра Невского), ul. Lenina, 39-41. A copy of a pre-revolutionary chapel from the second half of the 19th century, built in 2008 with private donations. (updated Dec 2018)
• 5 Monument to Paleshan warriors (Памятник воинам-палешанам) (next to the Alexander Nevsky Chapel). The monument of the 1970s was erected in memory of the soldiers of the Palekh region who died in the Great Patriotic War. The author is the famous Palesian sculptor N.V. Dydykin (1894-1975). (updated Dec 2018)
• 6 Bust of V.I. Lenin (Бюст В.И. Ленина), intersection of Lenin and Bazhanov streets. Another work by Dydykin (1956), in which his Palekh origin was even more clearly demonstrated: before the revolution, the future sculptor studied and worked in an icon-painting workshop, so Lenin here is a bit like the Almighty. (updated Jun 2019)
• 7 Fire station (Пожарное депо), ul. Bakanova, 23. A rare example of a wooden building with a tower. (updated Mar 2018)

Wooden house with carvings on Bakanova Street

• The ordinary buildings of Palekh are also interesting in their own way. Along Lenin and Bakanova streets there are pre-revolutionary stone houses, mostly strong and two-story, and then there are wooden houses decorated with carvings, usually modern, but no less pretty. By the standards of the Ivanovo region, there is absolutely nothing special here; fortunately, carved houses are found in every second village, and even registers of cultural heritage sparingly note the “historical center of Palekh” without detailing its individual buildings, although for those who came from Vladimir or Nizhny Novgorod , Palekh will be a good introduction to what you will see next. Don't forget about the museums too!
• 8 State Museum of Palekh Art (Государственный музей Палехского искусства). Tu–Su 10:00 – 17:00, closed last Friday of each month. All museums of Palekh painting are united under this sign. Single ticket: 200 rubles, includes three main exhibitions (miniatures, icons, Golikov house-museum): 140 rubles. (updated Jun 2019)  
  • 9 Museum of Lacquer Miniatures (Музей лаковой миниатюры), ul. Bakanova, 50. The main museum, where you should go first. They show works from the Soviet era, starting from the 1920s, and although many of them are not devoid of ideological overtones, you will see how similar Palekh masters painted illustrations to Pushkin’s fairy tales and some kind of speech by Frunze before the workers of Ivanovo factories, not to mention enchanting stories like “The Trial of the Pioneers over Baba Yaga” from 1933. If you have enough time, it’s better to first look into the museum of icons to see how the same artistic techniques and even the same story lines smoothly moved from icon painting to Soviet painting. (updated Jun 2019)
  • 10 Museum of Icons (Музей иконы), ul. Lenina, 6. This exhibition complex displays icons from churches in the Ivanovo region, mostly the work of local artists, although, oddly enough, you will also find paintings by Western European artists of the 16th - 19th centuries, collected for educational purposes. This is also the central “office” of the museum, where there is an art salon, and in addition, they sell souvenirs. (updated Jan 2019)
• 11 Art workshop “Palekh style” (Художественная мастерская «Палехский стиль»), ul. Zinovieva, 2V. A place where the Palekh style can be seen in its modern version. The workshop specializes in icon painting, although it also makes boxes, caskets and other souvenirs. They show the painting of boxes live, or they can even organize a master class on making brooches in the Palekh style. (updated Jun 2019)
• 12 House of Crafts (Дом ремёсел), ul. Lenin 42. Here you can also attend a master class or simply buy souvenirs. The House of Crafts is located in a stone mansion built in 1860; one of its rooms is given over to the museum of the icon painter and expert on ancient Russian painting N.M. Sofonov (1844-1910), who once lived in this house. (updated Dec 2023)
• 13 Holy Sign Church, in the village of Krasnoye (4 km from Palekh towards Shuya). A common case on Ivanovo land is a temple built in the Russian style with a hipped bell tower, but already in the 19th century (1802-04), and this is not yet a stylization, but a completely traditional solution for its region. The church fits well into the landscape, is beautifully restored and, moreover, was not closed during Soviet times, so the 19th-century Palekh-style paintings inside have partially survived, although they were renovated in the 1970s and 1980s. with distortion of pattern and color. This is one of the most picturesque churches in the Ivanovo region. (updated Dec 2023)

Buy

• Palekh miniatures — In the 20th century the town distinguished itself by the innovation of distinctive lacquer painted miniatures, famous across Russia.