Gzhel

　　Gzhel, not far from the city of Moscow, has long been famous for its rich deposits of clays suitable for the making of pottery, and, hence, for the ceramic industries that grew up around them. In fact, practically the entire population of some thirty villages in this neighborhood have long engaged in the manufacture of pottery, the more so, as considering the dense sprawling forests around, there has never been any shortage of firewood. One could say that it was symbolical for Gzhel to be understood already in the 19th century as synonymical, to a great degree, with Russian folk ceramics. True, it was somewhat earlier, in the previous, 18th century, that Gzhel rose to fame as a large ceramics center that produced not only earthenware for purely utilitarian purposes, but also artistic and decorative objects.

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