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Playable heritage gameKhokhloma Pattern Painting
Also known as Хохлома
Khokhloma is a Russian craft from the Volga region in which wooden bowls, spoons and furniture are given a warm golden shine with a metal powder and then painted with red and black berries, curling leaves and grass sprigs. Heat in the oven turns the finish a deep, glowing gold.
How to play
- Pick a colour and a mark from the strip under the panel: berries, rings, leaves, curls, grass and flowers.
- Tap a square to paint it: the same mark appears in the matching squares turned round the middle, as on a plate.
- Copy the small design above the panel, then press Check.
Rules at a glance
- The panel is a plate seen from above: whatever you paint is repeated in four turns around the centre.
- A square scores only when its mark and its colour both match the design.
- Painting the same mark and colour again, or using the eraser, clears it.
- Three stars need a near-perfect copy; undo and clear are free.
About the tradition
Khokhloma takes its name from a village in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia, where painted wooden ware has been made since the seventeenth century and is still made by workshops and families today.
Origins
A living tradition passed from person to person; it is not tied to a single dated origin. It belongs to the cultural world of Northern and Eastern Europe.
Credits
- Pattern design: World Heritage Games (original)
- Photo: Politikaner, CC BY-SA 3.0, source on Wikimedia Commons
- Text: CC BY-SA 4.0, World Heritage Games.
Sources
Get the app
Khokhloma Pattern Painting is one of 20 paper and paint crafts in the Paper & Paint of the World app for iPhone, iPad and Android. Submitted to the App Store and Google Play; in review. Store links appear here the day it goes live. One app, many traditions, no account needed.
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