In the first five secrets of the series, you got to know the workshop — how a SevChern piece is created step by step. Now, we are no longer looking at the individual piece, but at the factory itself: How did it even come to be? And why does the Veliky Ustyug niello art still exist today at all?
First the art, then the manufactory — two different dates
Anyone who looks into SevChern will come across two dates that must be distinguished:
1683 — the niello art. The first written mention of Veliky Ustyug niello smithing dates back to 1683. This does not refer to the factory, but to the craft: the method of melting black sulfide alloys into engraved silver lines. It traveled from Byzantium to Russia, found its home in Veliky Ustyug, and flourished in the 18th century. In 1744, the Veliky Ustyug master Mikhail Klimshin was even called to Moscow to teach Moscow merchants the niello technique.
1929 — the cooperative. In the 19th century, the craft went into decline. Machine-made jewelry from Moscow factories was cheaper. Then, after 1917, came the second blow: the small family workshops disappeared. By the end of the 1920s, the Veliky Ustyug niello tradition was almost extinct.
The fact that it still exists today is thanks to one man.
Mikhail Pavlovich Chirkov — heir to a family and savior of a craft
Mikhail Pavlovich Chirkov was a hereditary niello master. His knowledge came from his family—handed down from generation to generation in a line that stretched back to the 18th century. In 1929, he made a decision that changed everything: he founded a cooperative production artel in Veliky Ustyug, a cooperative that bundled and passed on the knowledge of the last niello masters.
Address: Revolutsionnyy pereulok, House 8/8. (From 1945 to 1968, the factory was housed there.) What began with Chirkov was not mass production. It was a rescue: the secret family recipes—the exact ratio of the niello ingredients, the firing temperatures, the polishing movements—were passed on instead of dying with the last of the old masters.
1933 — the “Severnaya Chern” Artel. Four years after Chirkov’s founding, the cooperative formally organized as an artel and adopted the name that the factory still bears today: Severnaya Chern — “Northern Niello.”
1937 — the Paris gold medal. Just four years after its formal founding, SevChern received a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris for a table set with niello motifs from Pushkin's fairy tales. Russian niello art was back on the world stage.
From artel to factory to works
The history of the factory can be told in three numbers:
- 1960 — the artel is restructured into a factory.
- 1973 — the factory receives the status of a works (Zavod). “Severnaya Chern” becomes the official ZAO Velikoustyugskiy zavod “Severnaya Chern” — the form in which we know it today.
- July 2014 — a demonstration hall opens on the factory premises. Since then, visitors have been able to learn about the history of the craft, touch the niello secret, and try their hand at engraving.
Ekaterina Koposova — a voice from the demonstration hall
Ekaterina Koposova came to the factory more than 30 years ago. For the last three years, she has worked in the demonstration hall—guiding visitors through the history and workshop of the manufactory. In every word she says, one can feel the love for the work she does.
“The masters here really do put more than just experience into the production,” she says. “They put their soul and their love into it. Because without love for what you do, you cannot create the beauty we see here every day.”
During factory tours, she often tells visitors: “If you have the desire, come to us. The main thing is that you have the wish—we will teach you the rest. If a person comes here with the desire, then they stay. Then it turns into love, and then everything else follows.”
The dynasties — why people stay for life
More than half of the staff at SevChern has spent their entire professional life here. Some continue family dynasties: mothers, daughters, sisters. Men whose uncles or aunts sat at the same workshop table before them. Knowledge that is not in a textbook—only in the movement of a hand that has been making the same movement for decades.
This is an essential part of the seventh secret: the SevChern tradition is not archived—it is continuous. It does not live in a museum, but in a workshop where, every morning, masters come to the workbench whose grandmothers may have sat there before them.
What you are holding in your hand
If you own a SevChern christening spoon, a niello goblet, or a wall icon today, you are not just holding silver. You are holding an unbroken line: 1683, first mentioned in writing. 1744, taught in Moscow. 1929, saved from extinction. 1937, awarded in Paris. 2014, brought to life in the demonstration hall. And today, under the hands of masters like Nadezhda Amosova and Olga Petrova.
Craftsmanship since 1683. Workshop since 1929. A line that was never broken.
In the next secret
If the tradition is passed on through people, then the people are the real secret. And that is exactly the next topic: Secret No. 9 — the human factor. Who is Sergey Prokshin, who has worked at SevChern for 45 years? What does the hallmark that Denis Kholopov stamps into every piece mean? And how do the younger generation get into the factory?
This article series shows in 8 episodes how a SevChern piece is created. Sources: official documentation of ZAO Severnaya Chern (Veliky Ustyug, Vologda) as well as factory videos. Texts at premiumgeschenk.de | SilberKosmos.