The outerwear used by both men and women in the cold season in Pomorye was called sukman. It was usually worn when going fishing and hunting sea animals. The displayed sukman made of yellow cloth belonged to the Sovershayev family from the village of Lyamtsy in the Onega Uyezd of the Arkhangelsk Governorate. The item was sewn around the end of the 19th century.

On the southern, Onega, as well as on the Tersky, Karelian, and northern coasts, during the spring seal hunting, a sukman was worn over a sheepskin coat. Usually it was a white tunic-like garment with a hood. At the same time, a women’s sukman of the Onega and southern coasts, which was worn during the navaga fishing, was yellow and belted with a sash.

Women of the north were independent and often engaged in fishing. Pomorye fishermen left home to go fishing from May to September and sometimes even stayed for the winter. Given this schedule, their wives could not count on any help from them for a significant part of the year. The women were forced to take full responsibility for running the household and raising the younger children while the husband was gone.

The women stocked hay for horses or cows, grew and harvested crops, stored berries and mushrooms for the whole family to enjoy in winter, prepared bath brooms, kindling wood for the winter (thin slivers of wood used for makeshift lighting) and medicinal herbs; they also helped children and elderly parents and looked after domestic animals. Before their husbands left for fishing, the Pomor women did their best to provide them with enough clothing and food and prepare everything necessary to take along.

Boys in Pomorye grew up watching women handle the duties of the head of the family on equal terms with men and knew that all relatives respected and obeyed them. Therefore, later young men treated their wives with respect. Pomor girls also understood that women played a great role in their community, and therefore behaved with great dignity.

People in Pomorye did not even use the Russian word “baba” (sometimes used in a derogatory sense toward women), as they considered it degrading. The Pomor men called women “zhonki”. Many zhonki were as much capable at handling sails as men, knew the basics of navigation, and sometimes even engaged in trade. Pomor girls learned all this from their parents.