In a snowy winter day, sitting on the wooden floor, I would open a case full of Russian matryoshkas wrapped in old newspapers sheets. I would open each doll again and again, until the tiniest one would be deployed. Then, looking out of the window, I would be in a world of violent snowstorms, dark forests and small houses where high stoves fill rooms and hearts with their warmth.
Vassily Zviozdochkin and Sergej Malyutin created the first Russian nested doll around 1890, in the Abramtsevo estate, seventy kilometres north of Moscow. They were inspired by a similar Japanese toy, which portrayed an old wise Buddhist man called Fukuruma. Each of the eight dolls, except the last one, could be divided into two halves revealing a smaller doll inside. Malyutin, who illustrated children’s books, painted the barrel-shaped dolls as happy and smiling peasant women, dressed with coloured headscarf and aprons while clutch a black rooster or a bowl. The smallest doll was a sleeping baby.
Raw material is seasoned wood. Lime wood, the most common, requires at least two years of ripening before the woodworker could start his job with the turning lathe, knives and chisels. Then, dolls are painted in bright, basic colours and finished with several coats of lacquer. Today, decorations are more important than thickness, which once showed the skill of the artisan and determined the beauty of the dolls. Traditional patterns developed in different styles, some focused on the face, others on the costume. The expression of the eyes or the hairstyle competed with birds, fruits, vegetables and flowers or, in recent times, with the ironic portrait of famous people. Each element was a symbol that, with elements taken from country life, recalled prosperity and happiness.
Matryoshkas enhance rural life and the traditional values of family and simplicity, with both their image of fertile, little mothers and with their name, derived from the popular female names of Matryona or Matriosha. Actually, this hymn to popular life was invented in a laboratory for the production and sale of toys. The Children’s Education Workshop was part of a wider project intended to preserve Russian folk crafts in the Abramtsevo estate. Here, artists coming from the whole country created art in everyday objects with techniques and patterns learnt from skilled artisans. Studies ranged from music and dance to furniture, or from lace to jewels. The owner was an industrialist and patron of art named Savva Mamontov. He was sincerely interested in the conservation of folk works and in the business generated by an increasing demand for objects recalling the true Russian style, especially in the area of Moscow. This emerged as a rich, lively town after a period of decline started with the forced westernization wanted by Peter the Great. In the first years of the XVIII century, he had imposed European manners and French language to Russian nobles, and rigid, classical facades to palaces built in Saint Petersburg. The town he had created on the water "…as a work of art”(1) despised Moscow for its lifestyle rooted in popular old traditions. But, this reputation allowed Moscow to become the “mother”, the symbol for Russian people of their true past with its customs and beliefs that new economy endangered with a fast railway and cheap industrial products.
Matrioshkas were a great success and were sold in millions not only in Russia. With the World Exhibition held in Paris in 1900, Russian style invaded European capitals with its exotic, cheerful and coloured allure inspired to an ideal, peaceful, rural world. An image that, in a few years, a war and a bloody revolution would destroy with their foolish violence and brutality.
Sitting on the floor, surrounded by coloured, smiling families, I would read the story of this country while the snow falls.
Notes:
(1) page 6, Orlando Figes, La danza di Natasha – Storia della cultura russa (XVIII-XX secolo), 2002 Torino, Biblioteca Einaudi
Further reading:
Orlando Figes, La danza di Natasha – Storia della cultura russa (XVIII-XX secolo), 2002 Torino, Biblioteca Einaudi
Cherry Gilchrist, Russian Magic: Living Folk traditions of an Enchanted Landscape,
From google book
Photos:
Travelinagarden
