V Ryzhova

About

V. Ryzhova (В. Рыжова) was a Soviet-era perfumer at the Novaya Zarya (New Dawn / Nouvelle Etoile) parfumerie in Moscow, the historic Russian house founded in 1864 by French-born perfumer Henri Brocard whose Soviet-period in-house team produced many of the USSR's defining domestic fragrances. Her work is documented in the canonical Soviet perfume reference by Voitkevich, who attributes authorship of the house's flagship vintage extrait Zlato Skifov (Or des Scythes / Gold of the Scythians) to two staff perfumers: T. Soboleva and V. Ryzhova. Ryzhova's defining credit is therefore the original Zlato Skifov, an aldehydic-floral oriental released in 1987 and considered by Russian collectors one of the masterpieces of late-Soviet perfumery. The composition opens on bergamot, wormwood and aldehydes; a heart of ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, vanilla, galbanum and iris; and a deep base of honey, patchouli, benzoin, cedar and musk - an aromatic identifiably Western in influence yet expressed through the Novaya Zarya's signature emphasis on chypre patchouli-rose construction. Period advertising described it as a warm drop of transparent honey, resin aromas and tender flowers. The original Voitkevich-documented composition was produced through 1996; later reformulations under different perfumer teams (including M. Stepanova post-transition) have circulated with adjusted note structures, but the 1987 Soboleva/Ryzhova original remains the collector reference.