Matryoshka doll

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Matryoshka doll
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A Matryoshka doll or a Russian nested doll (often
incorrectly referred to as a Babushka doll -
babushka means "grandmother" in Russian), is a
set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one
inside the other. "Matryoshka" (????????) is a
derivative of the Russian female first name
"Matryona", which was a very popular name among
peasants in old Russia. The name "Matryona" in
turn is related to the Latin root "mater" and
means "mother", so the name is closely connected
with motherhood and in turn the doll has come to
symbolize fertility.
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History
Matryoshkas date from 1890, and are said to have
been inspired by souvenir dolls from Japan, see
below. However, the concept of nested objects was
familiar in Russia, having been applied to carved
wooden apples and Easter eggs the first Fabergé
egg, in 1885, had a nesting of egg, yolk, hen,
and chick.The story goes that Sergei Maliutin, a
painter from a folk crafts workshop in the
Abramtsevo estate of a famous Russian
industrialist and patron of arts Savva Mamontov,
saw a set of Japanese wooden dolls representing
Shichifukujin, the Seven Gods of Fortune. The
largest doll was that of Fukurokuju a happy,
bald god with an unusually long chin and within
it nested the six remaining deities. Inspired,
Maliutin drew a sketch of a Russian version of
the toy. It was carved by Vasiliy Zvezdochkin and
painted by Sergei Maliutin at the Childrens
Education Workshop-Salon in Abramtsevo. It
consisted of eight dolls the outermost was a
girl holding a rooster, six inner dolls were
girls, the fifth doll was a boy, the innermost
a baby.In 1900, M.A. Mamontova, the wife of Savva
Mamontov, presented the dolls at the World
Exhibition in Paris and the toy earned a bronze
medal. Soon, many other places in Russia started
making matryoshki.
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Several Russian politicians depicted in
matryoshka form. During Perestroika, the leaders
of the Soviet Union became a common theme
depicted on matreshki. Starting with the largest,
Mikhail Gorbachev, then Leonid Brezhnev (Yuri
Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko almost never
appear due to the short length of their
respective terms), then Nikita Khrushchev, Josef
Stalin and finally the smallest, Vladimir Lenin.
Newer versions start with Dmitry Medvedev and
then follow with Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin,
Mikhail Gorbachev, Joseph Stalin and then
Vladimir Lenin. Modern artists create many new
styles of nesting dolls. Common themes include
animal collections, portraits and caricatures of
famous politicians, musicians and popular movie
stars. Matryoshka dolls that feature communist
leaders of Russia became very popular among
Russian people in the early 1990s, after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Today, some Russian
artists specialize in painting themed matryoshka
dolls that feature specific categories of
subjects, people or nature.Areas with notable
matryoshka styles include Sergiyev Posad,
Semionovo (now the town of Semyonov), Polkholvsky
Maidan, and Kirov.
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Overview
A set of matryoshkas consists of a wooden figure
which can be pulled apart to reveal another
figure of the same sort inside. It has, in turn,
another figure inside, and so on. The number of
nested figures is usually five or more. The shape
is mostly cylindrical, rounded at the top for the
head and tapered towards the bottom, but little
else the dolls have no hands (except those that
are painted). Traditionally the outer layer is a
woman, dressed in a sarafan. Inside, it contains
other figures that may be of both genders,
usually ending in a baby that does not open. The
artistry is in the painting of each doll, which
can be extremely elaborate. Matryoshkas are often
designed to follow a particular theme, for
instance peasant girls in traditional dress, but
the theme can be anything, from fairy tale
characters to Soviet leaders
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Russian fairy tale Repka- turnip
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The end