When conducting long-standing traditional ceremonies, perhaps one of the main elements of the ritual is a rushnyk. Such a significant event as a wedding also cannot do without it. To comply with all the subtleties in the wedding ceremony, about forty rushnyks were required, which were stocked up in advance, painstakingly decorated with embroidery.
Each wedding towel served its purpose and had its own name. The largest and most beautiful was called "hand-made" and was presented to the groom, expressing the consent of the bride and parents to marriage.
“Blessed”, embroidered with red thread rushnik served as an ornament of icons, which parents blessed “young” before the wedding. Such towels were included in the dowry. At the wedding, the bride and groom stood on the "wedding" snow-white rushnyk. The white purity of the canvas symbolized the cloud on which the young couple is delivered to the kingdom of heaven, because only there, breaking away from the sinful world, you can receive the blessing of marriage. During the church ceremony, the priest bandaged the hands of the bride and groom with an “allied” towel. Thus, “tying” the newly made husband and wife to each other, expressing spiritual union, love and unity. Such a towel was decorated with floral ornaments, the names of the "young", the traditional inscription "advice and love." On the threshold of the house, after the wedding, the “young” parents met and, according to the old Russian tradition, brought bread and salt to the “hospitable” bench hammer. Flowers were necessarily embroidered on it, as a symbol and a wish for prosperity, prosperity, children and a couple of birds, symbolizing loyalty.
The bride gave rushnyks to the relatives of the future husband. The towels were the decoration of the wedding train: on the backs of horses, instead of reins, wrapped around the arc, tied over the shoulder on the participants of the festivities - a rushnyk performs many functions in the wedding ceremony.
Years after the wedding, carefully preserved towels also serve to decorate the house and give originality to your holidays and anniversaries. Each time you take out your wedding towels, you will recall an unusual holiday - your wedding, which became unique thanks to these Russian rites and traditions and, of course, not without the help of symbolic and colorful towels.
