Homespun rugs were an essential element of a Russian peasant home interior.  Covering the floor boards, thick rugs blocked drafts from the cellar and kept the floor boards clean.  In a thrifty peasant household where nothing was thrown away, they were made from worn out clothing.

The rugs on display were woven at a traditional hand-operated loom in the Novgorod Museum of Wooden Architecture, Russia, in the late 1990s.  At that time, visitors to this museum could try their hand weaving at the loom displayed in the museum, and thus contributing to the museum’s rug production.

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