The Changing Face Of Russia's Emblematic Matryoshka Dolls

Moscow (AFP) - From cheery peasant girls in Tsarist times to Soviet-era cosmonauts to today's Pussy Riots, the changing face of Russia's matryoshka nesting dolls reflects the country's tumultuous history.For tourists the dolls inside dolls that generally depict a buxom woman in a coloured headscarf are a must-buy souvenir believed to date back to a centuries-old tradition, but a new exhibition throws up some surprises.For one thing, the initial idea behind the iconic wooden dolls, with the small ones hidden inside larger ones, appears to have originated in Japan. In the 1890s, when the Far East was all the rage with Russia's elite, well-known industrialist Savva Mamontov brought back a set of seven deities of happiness that inspired painter Sergei Malyutin to produce a Russian version -- a peasant woman with all her children inside.The dolls caught on swiftly and were initially given a typical peasant name, Matryona, whose nickname is Matryoshka.