Russian nesting doll (synonyms - nested doll, stacking doll) or matryoshka as it is sounded in Russian - probably, the most popular Russian national souvenir. The wide fame was won by Russian matryoshka (nesting doll) far abroad. At all large exhibitions, fairs, the festivals held in different counties of the world, amusing cheerful nesting dolls were most fascinating exhibits. Also it seems, that matroyshka nesting doll has come to us from a gray-haired antiquity, from the world of legends and fairy tales. Actually this wooden doll is about hundred years. It was born in Moscow in 1890. It was atime when Russia was looking for a new natonal art style and a lot of artists worked along with folk craftsmen

Russian wooden dolls within smaller dolls were called matryoshka. In old Russian among peasants the name Matryona or Matriosha was a very popular female name. Scholars says this name has a Latin root "mater" and means "Mother". This name was associated with the image of of a mother of a big peasant family who was very healthy and had a portly figure.

Subsequently, it became a symbolic name and was used specially to image brightly painted wooden figurines made in a such way that they could taken apart to reveal smaller dolls fitting inside one another.

There are several traditional styles in which matryoshkas are made, these are Segiev-posad matryoshka andsemyonova matryoshka.

And of course there much more contemporary styles, now a day you can find matryoshka with faces of the football players or famous politicians, disney characters and so on.

When you purchase matryoshka just remember that it is an art and a toy at the same time and that it should bring joy .