The hand part of the mitten is tightly knitted light-yellow twisted wool, the wrist is knitted of brown untwisted wool. The mitten is made in the now forgotten technique of single needle knitting. From the earliest times, the technique of knitting with one needle was practiced in various regions and was widespread among the population of Northern Europe. In Russia, the earliest objects knitted in this way were found during excavations of ancient Novgorod and Ladoga and date back to the 10th – 11th centuries. 

For knitting, one needle with a large eye was used. Things knitted this way were rougher, denser and tougher. After washing in hot water, they shrink and become even more sturdy. What is peculiar about knitting with one needle is that such item would be impossible to knit out. As a rule, things intended for hunting or fishing were knitted this way. Work mittens were very popular in the White Sea region they were called ‘Russians’, ‘delnitsy’, ‘dyanki’ (both from Russian ‘дело’ which means work), ‘naladonki’ (‘on-palmers’). They were knitted by the men themselves, since it was believed that a woman’s participation could bring bad luck to the fishery. This technique was preserved in the Russian North until the middle of the 20th century under the name “digging” (“копанье”). The technology of knitting with one needle was restored by the conservator G. Grigorieva. 

The object was discovered in Mangazeya, founded in the 16th century in the rich with fur polar region of Western Siberia. After 1601, the trading settlement grew into a city. A Kremlin with a governor’s court, a cathedral and a trading quarter were built here. Mangazeya was a stronghold for moving the Russian state deep into Siberia and had trade relations not only with Russian merchants, but also with large companies in Western Europe. After a big fire in 1642, the city was not able to recover and was finally desolate in 1662. In 1672, an official decree was issued by Tsar Alexei on the abolition of Mangazeya as a city.