The Mari people are one of the oldest ethnic groups in the Volga region, who have preserved their traditional culture, including religious beliefs. In the period from the 19th to the early 20th century, Mari people migrated during the mass movement of the Russian peasantry to the east. Many of them settled in Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan.

The traditional Mari costume — both men’s and women’s — consisted of a shirt, caftan, pants, belt with pendants, headdress, leather or bast shoes with footwraps.

Women’s costume was supplemented with ornaments.

Mari people’s clothes and footwear were sewn from canvas, more often from hemp, less often from linen, as well as from domestic cloth, dressed animal skins and wool.

Mari folk costume was richly decorated with embroidery. The main motifs in the decorative patterns were images of geometric, vegetal, zoomorphic, and anthropomorphic figures.

A traditional headdress contained certain information about the person wearing it, including the age and social status. Women’s and girls’ headdresses were different. Married women wore a shymaksh. It was supposed to be worn by the Eastern and Northern Mari women who lived in Krasnoufimsk, Biysk, Yelabuga and adjacent territories.

The shymaksh from the museum’s collection was handmade in the 1940s in the Kirov region.

It was sewn from a strip of homespun cotton cloth in the shape of a trapezoid. The upper, narrower part of the cloth was folded into a triangle, forming a pointed cone. The piece was embroidered with geometric patterns using threads of dark brown, pink and green colors.

There are buttons, sequins, beads and ten-kopeck coins of the Russian Empire and the RSFSR sewn on the upper front part. The back along the bottom edge is decorated with a fringe of transparent seed beads and braid appliqué.

A shymaksh was worn in different ways. North Mari women, for example, shifted it to the top of the head, covering it with a kerchief or shawl. Women did their hair so the headdress could be fixed. The hairstyle had to be tight, so that it would hold the fixture in the form of a stick. Small plaits were braided and twisted on the top, and the remaining strands were used to make a big braid under the nape. Then the braid was raised to the hard part of the frame, fixing the cap with a stick, and wrapped around it. Eastern Mari women pulled the shymaksh over the forehead. Their hairstyle was different: the hair was tightly twisted and fixed with a braid at the top of the back. Such a bun fixed the cap in the right position.