The Northern Sun exhibition project of Tsarskoe Selo and Kargopol Museum, which sparkled in the State Rooms of the Catherine Palace earlier this year, is continuing its tour of Russia, thanks to the Ministry of Culture's support.

After the first stop is the city of Nizhny Novgorod in Central Russia, the exhibition sets foot in Arkhangelsk by the northern White Sea. The local Museum of Fine Arts (the 'Art Culture of the Russian North' State Museum Association) is hosting our travelling project until 10 December 2026.

On display are around sixty exhibits from Tsarskoe Selo and Kargolol. The original exhibition's concept by St Petersburg theatre designer Yury Suchkov is retained, with boats carried by the river of time that connects eras, cities, capital nobles and peasant craftswomen through the art of goldwork embroidery.

The Kargopol Museum showcases nineteenth-century traditional Russian scarves and headpieces, such as kokoshniks and sorokas, embroidered with gold and pearls by craftswomen from the Kargopol and Vologda regions of the Russian Empire.

The collection of Tsarskoe Selo is represented by imperial court uniforms and gowns of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The dresses of Empress Alexandra Fёdorovna and Grand Duchess Xenia, Nicholas II's wife and sister, respectively, were produced by St Petersburg's Olga Bulbenkova Workshop specialized in formal female wear for official occasions. Xenia's light velvet dress with silver embroidery was featured in the Russian weekly magazine World Illustrated #1331 in 1894, in an article about the grand duchess' dowry on display at the Winter Palace.

Especially noteworthy is Nicholas II's Old Russian falconer costume. The emperor wore it at Count Sheremetev's famous costume ball in 1894.  

A specially developed educational programme for the exhibition includes lectures by art historians from Moscow and St Petersburg.