Photograph: Pomors wearing leather fishing outfits, with nets in their hands.

Russians

Arkhangelsk province, Arkhangelsk district

1895

20,2 x 13,4; 28,3 x 20,5

РЭМ 3169-1

The photo shows two fishermen in leather trousers with a high front and wide shoulder straps, wearing leather jackets and waders. They have peak caps on their heads and scarves and kerchiefs on their necks. One of the men has nets with round and oval floats tied to them in his hands. Floats often bore initial letters of the settlements, toward which a certain end of the net was cast out, and the owner’s initials. The other one is holding a lift net, a tackle used to take the caught fish out of the net; it is a wooden hoop with a handle, on which a net was “fitted.” Abstract by O.G. Baranova