Felt Boots

The Museum of felt boots, opened on June 28, 2012, consists of more than 200 exhibits. Among them are the old wood-processing machines and tools for the manufacturing of felt boots, and felt boots themselves - record holders and decorated boots, chess in the shape of boots, various goods of wool, felt boots of unusual shapes, a collection of miniature felt boots and many more.

The museum was created by the Sokolov family living in a nice city of Kineshma. Valeriy and his wife Irina for more than 20 years had been engaged in the manufacturing of felt boots. While their children were small the family made only simple boots. But the daughters grew up with time and wanted to be different from other kids at school, so their boots got embroidered with beads, marbles, lace, etc. At first the decorations were pretty modest, but eventually real masterpieces began to appear. Thus the daughters inspired Valeriy to create records. First, he fashioned a pair of mini-felt boots with the size of only 5 cm in feet length, but he did not stop here. Each time the boots got smaller and smaller in size, and finally, only physical properties of wool made Valeriy stop at the size of 0.6 cm. The family applied for a record in the "Russian Book of Records", the record was recognized and registered. After that, Valeriy made giant-sized boots, equal to adult person in their size: 168 cm high and 110 cm long. Some years later the Sokolov family made boots more than two meters in height, as well as the collection of miniature felt boots the smallest of which was 0.9 mm in feet length.

As the time passed, the quantity of unusual boots in the Sokolov family became so great that they did not fit in one small room. The head of the family had to find a special room for felt boots in their house. Soon afterwards many friends and strangers began to call at their house so that to marvel at this wonder. Due to this fact it was decided to move the museum of felt boots to the city centre so that anyone could visit it. With the help of local and regional administrations the decision was put into practice, and now everyone can admire the beauty of these felt boots.