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Such models were often manufactured by the Bogorodskaya toy-makers. The models were coated with layers of glue-impregnated paper, then the paper was dried, cut in two halves, removed from wooden base, and assembled as a light-weight hollow article. A primer coat was applied to the arti-:hen it was burnished, painted, and varnished. By the end of the 19th century various work-shop in Sergiev Posad produced a wide variety of ded papier mache toys. Up to 7 000 kinds of were delivered to the customers. At that period almost any urban family bought for their children one of up to 30 types of rocking and hobby horses of different appearance and configuration available on the market. The dappled rocking horses were in the greatest demand and they are still manufactured these days. The range of molded toys included figurines of lions with yellow manes, cockerels, diverse cats and dogs, dolls of all descriptions and uses, and many other items. The papier mache dolls were often installed on boxes equipped with various mechanisms. A handle could be turned in the box and the doll started moving. Many such boxes included a music or sound mechanism, too. Birds and dolls were squeaking or chirping when a child pressed hidden bellows. Some of the papier mache toys made in Sergiev Posad were rather primitive and some were quite sophisticated and highly artistic depending on the skill and talent of the particular toy craftsmen but most of them were complicated enough to be moving and making sounds.

The toys were also manufactured by Sergiev Posad wood turners for whom it was an extension of the wood turning trade manufacturing household utensils which flourished starting from the 17th century. The best wood turners in the Moscow region lived in the Zvenigorod district. They were famous for their sets of intricate wooden game pieces for the very popular "biryulld" game in which players compete in picking up articles of different shapes with a small hook. The wood turners from the villages of Babenld, Voronovo, and Svirino of the southern Podolsk district manufactured exquisitely finished wooden rattles, pieces for assembling toy pyramids, sets of wooden eggs inserted one inside the other, wooden balls, toy barrels, and cups. One still cannot help being impressed with their magnificent workmanship when one sees them today.

It was a long-established tradition in Russian toy-making trade to manufacture hollow wooden dolls, one inserted into the other. It is irrelevant whether the Russian toy makers had a previous knowledge of the similar Japanese dolls or not when they developed the concept of the matryoshka doll. The actual design of the doll is not so significant as the artistic concept of inserting dolls into one another which is intrinsically organic to the Russian mentality. The matryoshka doll earned a world-wide fame when it was presented at the International Paris Exhibition of 1900 very soon after its concept had been develped. Its recognition was a good evidence of the perfection of the so-called Russian style in decorative art that flourished at the turn of the century.

The new wooden toy immediately was accepted as just the thing to be taken by a visitor as a souvenir from the great and mysterious land of Russia. The small Moscow toy workshop in the Leontievsky Lane where the matryoshka doll had been designed could not cope with the flood of orders for the dolls coming from other countries. Sergei Morozov who had acquired the workshop from the Mamontov family established a subsidiary shop in the town of Sergiev Posad.

The matryoshka trade continued to prosper in the traditional toy-making centers. The number of doll types differing in painted ornaments amounted to 21 in 1911. The painting style of the Sergiev dolls was quite realistic and rather precise. The prolific Semenov doll makers were significantly influenced by it in the later period.

Dolls were always the most common types of toys. The ancient dolls or human figurines made either of wood or of clay were typically idol images with pronounced features denoting the sex of the image. The earthenware, wooden, or rag dolls were household items in Russian villages for many centuries which had different applications. Dolls were widely used in various holiday rituals. For instance, a piece of birch tree was decorated with multico-lored rags and featured prominently as a doll in ritual festivities in the Christmas period The doll symbolized wealth, prosperity, rich harvest and everything else desirable to be wished during the Christmas festivities in winter. The rags were stripped off the doll during the celebration and the wood was ultimately burned to be plaited from the red rags. The doll symbolized fertility and was a magical mascot for ensuring a plentiful harvest. The larger the chest of the doll was the greater was the harvest to be expected. The "cut-off' doll was also a fertility image. It was made of straws, lime-tree bast, or flax fibers discarded in linen manufacture. Sometimes the doll was outfitted with specially made clothes but often it was decorated just with brightly colored woolen threads. The straw dolls made with straws from the first batch of the new rye crop were regarded as sacred symbols. The village maiden who proved to be most adroit in harvesting the crop was seated at the place of honor at home and was charged with making several "cutoff' dolls from the new straws. The ritual doll-making was accompanied with singing and the doll was kept at the place of honor near the icons till the nest harvest time.

Another symbolic doll was in use at the Lent festival time. On one of the festival days it was customary for a young family to visit the husband's mother-in-law for a pancake feast This doll was placed at a window before such a visit The doll was fixed on a wooden-cross base and preserved as a token of wealth and health for the entire family. The doll was kept at place of honor near the icons as a family guardian symbol. When bride and groom came into the house after their wedding the doll was taken out to greet them. When the family suffered a misfortune the doll was taken out and turned clockwise three times while the family members chanted "Evil, turn away; good, turn in!"

The wedding was regarded as one of the most important rituals in human life and various types of dolls were prepared for celebrating it. One ritual doll known as the "wedding pair" was presented to the newlyweds on an ornamental towel during the wedding service. The towel was to be used only after the birth of the first child of the new family and the doll was given to the first-born child to play.

Another doll specially prepared for the wedding ceremony was known as the ash doll because it was stuffed with ash. The ash from

The "plaited" Easter doll was manufactured a week before the holiday as it was to given as a gift on the Palm Sunday. The arms and legs .of the doll had the home hearth was always regarded as a sacred family symbol for the Slavic tribes. The Slav people had established special consecrated sites where they stored ashes. The ash doll proffered to the newlyweds expressed the wish that the fire of life keep on burning at their home.

Another symbolic doll was the "cuddling" doll representing a baby. The doll is tied with a ribbon in an odd number of turns to symbolize guardianship. The most fascinating custom was to prepare a whole set of wedding dolls. Some of such sets included more than a hundred dolls representing various characters participating in the wedding ceremonies, such as the bride and bridegroom, the best men, the maids-of-honor, the relatives of the bride and the bridegroom, and so on. The sets included also various accessories used during traditional wedding ceremonies and rituals the full sequence of which could take many days. The wedding dollsets could be used to reenact all such ceremonies in play.

It was a tradition in the Russian peasant families to encourage girls in making dolls and playing with them. These activities were primarily regarded as a learning experience for girls as future mothers which also gave them training in the traditional women's skills such as sewing, weaving, knitting, and so on.

As a girl grew up to the nubile age a doll made by her served as a proof of her proficiency in skills expected of a wife and mother. In villages girls gathered for parties which were also attended by prospective bridegrooms. Each girl brought a doll she had made and dressed to a party and the young men looking for a bride could readily appraise her skillfulness.

Until they reached a certain age boys played with dolls, too. Such games stimulated their capacity for empathy and enhanced their vision and understanding of everyday life events. It was only in late 19th century that the first rag dolls representing male figures appeared in Russia when the urban culture stimulated a new interest to ethnographic toys.

A typical attribute of the peasant doll was its lack of facial features. The doll face was not painted and remained blank. This was, apparently, explained by ancient Slavic superstitions. A featureless doll was regarded as an inanimate object. Therefore it could not be possessed by an evil power and was harmless for a child.

The modernization drive was initiated by Peter the Great at the turn of the 18th century and rich families started importing Western toys including dolls for their children. English, French, and German dolls were imported and became available to the Russian customers. In the 19th century Russian craftsmen started manufacturing European-style dolls in Moscow and other cities. A commercial Russian doll no longer looked and was dressed as a country maiden, it had the appearance of a young city lady wearing contemporary clothes according to the season. Some dolls preserved from that period are graceful maidens in dresses with a high waistline according to the contemporary fashion. The first skilled seamstresses were known to be brought to Sergiev Posad from Moscow to make dresses for dolls in the first half of the 19th century. That was the first time that women workers were brought to the toy-making trade in Sergiev Posad. The production of ethnographic dolls initiated at the toy workshop at the Leontievsky Lane was moved to the training toy workshop established in Sergiev Posad in 1891. The costumes for the ethnographic dolls were designed by several Moscow artists who hased their designs on the exhibits from the ethnographic collections of the public Rumyantsevsky Museum in Moscow.

The dolls manufactured by artists and craftsmen in private commercial workshops and toy-making cooperatives originally had porcelain heads imported from a factory in the town of Kalisz in Poland. Subsequently, factories were established at the villages of Khotkovo and Gzhel in the Moscow region for producing ceramic doll heads.

The small cooperative workshops that first appeared in Moscow and then were established in many towns of the Moscow region (for example, Sergiev Posad, Khotkovo, and Aleksandrov) continued producing dolls in fairly small batches until the sixties of the 20th century when large-scale toy factories started mass production.
That was the time when the craftsmen working in the cooperatives making hand-made dolls ceased to supply products to the toy market. Despite the commercialization trend, the original art of the Russian toy still survives and flourishes at the centers of folk arts and crafts.