Are Russian dolls Russian?
SHORT ANSWER The souvenir staple is quintessentially Russian, but open it up and you may see Japanese influence
LONG ANSWER Their look is iconic: a colourful wooden figurine of a smiling woman in a headscarf, which can be opened to reveal another, smaller figure inside. And so on and so on. Also known as matryoshka (mother) dolls or sometimes referred to as babushka (old woman) dolls, the figures most often take the form of traditional Russian women as a symbol of family and fertility, but they can depict virtually anything. Around the end of the Cold War, for instance, sets of caricatured Soviet leaders were also popular.
The quintessentially Russian nesting dolls are most certainly Russian. The original set, from 1890, was designed and painted by Sergey Malyutin and crafted by Vasily Zvyozdochkin, both residents of the Abramtsevo estate artists’ colony near Moscow. The pair were part of the children’s education workshop, tasked with making toys, and it is possible that they drew inspiration for their creation from a series of Japanese dolls called the Seven Lucky Gods, although this has never been officially confirmed.
It wasn’t long before the duo’s nesting dolls – of eight figures, starting with a woman holding a rooster and ending with a tiny baby – went international when a set was displayed at the 1900 world’s fair in Paris, the Exposition Universelle.
