The zybka cradle from the museum collection was made approximately in the late 19th or early 20th century. The word “zybka” meaning a rocking cradle was used in Vyatka, Nizhny Novgorod and Ural subdialect. As a rule, such a cradle for a child was made by the father or grandfather. In rural areas, the cradle was often attached to a long flexible pole, which was either fixed to the wall or cut into it.

The pole for the cradle was commonly made of birch wood, which was bendable. Hanging a cradle had both a practical meaning (warm air in the upper part of the room protected the baby from the cold on winter nights) and a sacred meaning: babies were raised from the floor in order to protect them from the influence of evil forces. It was believed that the higher the cradle was placed, the closer it was to God.

This exhibit came to the museum in 1960 from the village of Dali, Ust-Ishimsky district, Omsk region. The cradle was made of wood by hand, without using nails, in the form of an elongated box with walls slanting to the sides. The walls were connected by grooves. The cradle was equipped with two arcs of rods, on which a blanket was thrown and by means of which the whole construction was suspended. In the upper part, the arcs were tied together with a thick, rather long rope.

The outer surface of the side walls of the cradle was painted in brown, on each wall a large flower was painted in black paint and circled in white. This design was traditional for Urals- Siberian painting. It is considered to be one of the varieties of free brush painting on a stained wooden base. It involved a special technique of brushstroke, when colored paint was applied on the edges of a flat brush simultaneously with white paint.

Red, blue, yellow, green, black and white colors were used in the decoration, with less frequent use of dark brown. The main motifs were flowers, the tree of life, and, more rarely, animals and birds. The wooden base was sanded, primed with varnishes, and covered with glue or starch. Then, the background was painted. A doll in the shape of a cross was hung over the cradle. Such an amulet was made by a mother for her child before he or she was born.