Russia

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Russian Nesting Dolls

I found this display of nesting dolls for sale on a street in St Petersburg, Russia. I didn’t buy one, but they seemed to be a popular souvenir item for the throngs of tourists.

There's a reason Russia is famous for nesting dolls, or Matryoshka dolls. But nobody knows why. You know them – the carvings, often of Russian peasant women, babushkas, that consist of several dolls nested inside each other. They’ve been around in Russia since the early 19th century and are now mostly factory-manufactured, although if you look real hard you may find some handcarved ones. This particular souvenir stand is in St. Petersburg, but I saw them everywhere I went in Russia.

There have been many changes in the past century, but the nesting doll has remained very much the same.

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