A Short History of Russian Nesting Dolls

The Story Behind the Name

"Matryoshkas" are Russian wooden dolls with smaller dolls stacked within the bigger ones.

In provincial Russia before the revolution the name Matryona or Matriyosha was a very popular female name. It was derived from the Latin root 'mater' that means 'mother'. This name was associated with the image of a mother of a big family who was very healthy and had a portly figure. Subsequently, it became a symbolic name and was used specially to describe brightly painted wooden dolls made in such a way that they could be taken apart to reveal smaller dolls fitting inside one another.

Even now nesting doll is considered to be a symbol of motherhood and fertility. A mother doll with numerous dolls-children perfectly expresses the oldest symbol of human culture.

The first Russian nesting doll turned by Vassily Zviozdochkin and painted by Sergey Maliutin contained 8 pieces: a girl with a black rooster was followed by a boy and then by a girl again and so on. All figurines were different from each other; the last one was a figurine of a baby wrapped in diaper.