Я слышу голос, и он говорит мне: «Дойди до Рая!» (c)
Origins
Though today the nesting doll proudly displays its Russian heritage, it was the Chinese who first created a nesting doll in the late 1800s, based on a technique of storage boxes, one inside the other, that had been invented around 1,000 C.E.
Russian Influence
Nesting dolls found their way to Japan, where a wealthy Russian patron of the arts, Savva Mamontov, first saw them in the early 1890s. Deciding to turn them into a symbol of Russian heritage, he had one of his artists, Sergei Maliutin, recreate the dolls' look, and in 1900 Mamontov's wife presented the very Russian dolls at the World Exhibition in Paris.
Though today the nesting doll proudly displays its Russian heritage, it was the Chinese who first created a nesting doll in the late 1800s, based on a technique of storage boxes, one inside the other, that had been invented around 1,000 C.E.
Russian Influence
Nesting dolls found their way to Japan, where a wealthy Russian patron of the arts, Savva Mamontov, first saw them in the early 1890s. Deciding to turn them into a symbol of Russian heritage, he had one of his artists, Sergei Maliutin, recreate the dolls' look, and in 1900 Mamontov's wife presented the very Russian dolls at the World Exhibition in Paris.