Gzhel: porcelain, cobalt and a cup of your own

⏱ 9 h 30 min🚶 1.4 km + 🚆🚕🍽 2📍 5 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

A commuter train to Gzhel: a tour of a working porcelain factory, painting a cup in cobalt, the museum of the craft and lunch served on Gzhel tableware in Turygino.

👶 With kids🏛 History and architecture🎨 Art🚆 Out of town

👶 3–6, 7–12 years · ✗ hard with a stroller

The Gzhel platform has stairs without a ramp, and it’s along road shoulders and village pavements to the factory; between Rechitsy and Turygino there is only a taxi. An umbrella stroller works, a big one is hard going.

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)

Getting there

🏛 Kazansky Station

Комсомольская пл., 2

Book the factory tour in advance

🚆 by suburban train to Gzhel Porcelain Factory: Tours and Workshops

Train from Kazansky Station at 08:24 (arrives Gzhel 09:36) or REX at 09:10 (10:08), backup 09:14; Gzhel station, then 15 min on foot from the platform

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✨ Gzhel Porcelain Factory: Tours and Workshops
Раменский округ, с. Речицы, ул. Новая, 45А
🎟 ticket · tours and workshops are by ticket
A working Gzhel porcelain factory with a museum of the craft and a brand store; an hour-long tour of the workshops and cobalt-painting workshops.
Tours of the museum and workshops run daily every hour from 9:00 to 16:00 (60 min, adult 900 ₽ on weekends). Workshop: a postcard (600 ₽) or a cup in cobalt (900 ₽) — it will be fired, and you can pick it up at the shop on Pyatnitskaya. Booking: +7 903 107-21-29
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Valentin7777 · CC BY-SA 3.0
- The factory traces its history to 1818.
- On the tour you see items dipped in fuchsine: the porcelain turns pink and cracks and scratches show up on it.
- Cobalt paint is grey before firing and turns blue only in the kiln.
- At the workshop you learn the “shaded stroke”: paint is loaded onto one side of the brush so the tone goes from dark to light.
- In the 1930s the Vsekokhudozhnik factory worked in Rechitsy, where moulds from Abramtsevo, including Vrubel's sculptures, were brought.
- Lomonosov wrote of Gzhel clay that he had seen no other that was “superior in whiteness”.
🚶 on foot
2
🖼 Saltykov House Museum and Exhibition Centre
Раменский округ, с. Речицы, ул. Художника, 1В
A small private museum of the history of the Gzhel craft and the porcelain factory, with exhibitions of artists' works.
15 minutes on foot through Rechitsy. Open Wed–Sat 10:00–15:00, Sun 12:00–17:00, closed Mon–Tue — on those days go straight to Turygino
📖 More about the placeCollapse
- Alexander Saltykov (1900–1959) was an art historian and the Gzhel craft's artistic director in 1934–1955.
- He came to Gzhel in 1934 after imprisonment, without the right to live in big cities.
- Saltykov brought Vrubel's Abramtsevo moulds to Gzhel, and before the war the “Tsar Berendey” sculpture was produced here.
- To unify the style of Gzhel painting, Saltykov compiled a special atlas of brush strokes.
🚕 Taxi ≈5–7 min to Turygino
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✨ Gzhel Association in Turygino
Раменский округ, д. Турыгино, 280
🎟 ticket · the museum and tours are by ticket
One of the main Gzhel producers open to tourists: an exhibition, workshops, a brand store and a park with a Gzhel-style playground.
The exhibition, workshops and brand shop are open daily 9:00–17:00; for a tour of the production, check on 8 800 777-59-71. For kids, a park with a Gzhel-style playground
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© A.Savin · CC BY-SA 3.0
- The Gzhel cluster is 25 villages about 60 km from Moscow, now in Ramenskoye District.
- The familiar blue-and-white Gzhel style began to be created in 1945 by the artist Natalia Bessarabova together with the art historian Alexander Saltykov.
- Bessarabova worked at the Turygino art ceramics factory and taught the new painting to several craftswomen, including Tatyana Dunashova.
- In 1978 the Gzhel Association artists Azarova, Bessarabova, Dunashova and Okulova received the RSFSR Repin State Prize.
🚶 on foot
4
☕️ Kulinarnaya Kollektsiya (“Culinary Collection”) Café in Turygino
Раменский округ, д. Турыгино, 280 (территория «Объединения Гжель»)
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Lunch right there on the grounds: dishes are served on the local factory’s tableware. The café is open until 17:00
🍴 A café on the grounds of the Gzhel Association where lunches are served on painted dishes from the local factory. What to order: the home-style lunch of the day, cheesecake and local ice cream.
🚕 Taxi ≈10 min to Gzhel station
5
☕️ Kofemilk Coffee Shop by Gzhel Station
Раменский округ, с. Речицы, Школьная ул., 20
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A coffee shop two minutes from the platform
🍴 A small coffee shop two minutes from the Gzhel platform: signature coffee and baked goods. What to order: honey cake or “kartoshka” chocolate cake with coffee, a pork chebureki (fried turnover), a hot dog with chicken sausage.

↩️ Getting back: From Gzhel station to Kazansky Station: trains at 16:37 (≈1 h 13 min), 17:09 and 17:35, on weekdays also a REX at 16:24 (in Moscow at 17:30)