A Matryoshka doll or a Russian nested doll

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" (Матрёшка) 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.

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 Children’s 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.

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 1990 s, 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.

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 theme can be anything, from fairy tale characters to Soviet leaders

Russian fairy tale “Repka”- turnip