In Kirov, matryoshka dolls are made by splitting a piece of wood into 4. Then a piece is selected, and inserted into a machine that spins it parallel to the master carver so fast that it become a blur. We were not allowed to take photos or videos as we watched him work, so I will do my best to describe how it felt. He stood at the table with a long piece of metal that had something almost like a straight razor at one end. He would touch it to the spinning wood, and shavings flew. He seemed to know exactly where to cut, where to press the blade and where to make only a shallow incision. At one point he moved perpendicular, and used another tool to bore a hole in one end, moving slowly to make it bigger and bigger. When it stopped spinning, there was the top of a matryoshka doll in his hand. Then he added another piece of wood, and carved a small mushroom with the same speed and dexterity. I won it, later, for remembering how many dolls (8) were inside the first Russian matryoshka.
We were at the factory yesterday for maybe three hours, while we painted our own wooden dolls and learned about the history of matryoshka in Russia. One of the head painters told Diana, who told us, that the largest matryoshka doll had 72 dolls inside of it, each one only a few millimeters thick. We drank tea brewed in a samovar.
The Russian teenagers arrived yesterday as well, and my host sister is one of them, which I found out when I saw her in the hall. She’s really nice.
I have six lines of Russian poetry and like 30 vocab words to memorize and also a test (in Russian!) about Russian geography, so that’s all for now!
We were at the factory yesterday for maybe three hours, while we painted our own wooden dolls and learned about the history of matryoshka in Russia. One of the head painters told Diana, who told us, that the largest matryoshka doll had 72 dolls inside of it, each one only a few millimeters thick. We drank tea brewed in a samovar.
The Russian teenagers arrived yesterday as well, and my host sister is one of them, which I found out when I saw her in the hall. She’s really nice.
I have six lines of Russian poetry and like 30 vocab words to memorize and also a test (in Russian!) about Russian geography, so that’s all for now!