History of Russian Dolls
Okay, so Russian dolls are really called Matryoshka dolls rather than Babushka dolls, but I love the name Babushka. It makes me think of warm grandmas who smell of biscuits. Nesting dolls, stacking dolls, these sweet little things have as many names as they have faces.
Before the Revolution in Russia, Matryona or Matriyosha was a very popular name derived from the Latin root ‘Mater’ which means mother. This became the popular name for the robust dolls as they often portrayed a plump, healthy mother figure with many smaller dolls, sometimes thought to be children, fitting inside of her.
Babushka in Russian means grandmother. Matryoshka was sometimes mispronounced as Babushka and thus, the confusion.
Whatever the name, Vassily Zviozdochkin carved the first nesting doll and Sergey Maliutin painted it in the likness of a girl with a black rooster, then a smaller boy, an even smaller girl, until the last eighth doll was a baby in a diaper.
Russian craftsmen were already very experienced in carving small objects which fit inside one another such as Easter eggs, so when the idea for dolls was hatched, they immediately were copied by other craftsmen and became hugely popular.
The craft of making the dolls has remained relatively unchanged throughout the years. The wood used is usually birch, alder, aspen, or lime. Trees are cut in the spring when the trees are full of sap. The bark is stripped and all but a few rings of the tree are left. The wood is left to air dry for two years.
When the wood is mature, the craftsman begins to carve the dolls starting with the smallest one first, then the bottom of the next one and the body. The top of each doll must be made so it exactly fits the ring of the bottom half of the doll. The craftsmen rely on their intuition and experience rather than on tape measures and patterns. Once carved, the doll is allowed to dry so the rings fit snug. The light colored doll is cleaned, sanded, primed and painted.
This Christmas, we’ve seen babushka dolls everywhere:
in Parisian shop windows,
on a Belgian market stall and
for sale at the village fair in Knaresborough.
We’ve used these as our inspiration to create unique Babushka Christmas stockings and scrumptious cookies. Enjoy!
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Contents
Letters from London
History of Russian Dolls
Babushka Christmas Stocking
Christmas Bloom Stocking
A Rebel Christmas Stocking