Palekh lacquers use the many-layered technique of tempera painting on drawings done with a tempera whitener. The color patches are put down first, followed by the scenes and then the application of gold and the highlighting of special areas — so-called probela. This is a carryover from medieval Russian painting in which colors were, as they still are, applied in repeated stages, with the basic color having a greater proportion of whitener. Socalled plavi painting is characteristic of Palekh (plavi refers to the application of translucent layers of color over still damp color surfaces). Palekh boxes are distinctive for their black backgrounds. White or red backgrounds do occur, but rarely (see  article for more details).