Greetings from Yimianpo, China, where artisans carve Russian nesting dolls

Posted 2025-11-19 18:00:20 · 334 Views

Greetings from Yimianpo, China, where artisans carve Russian nesting dolls

Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.

Matryoshka dolls are a Russian folk art tradition dating back over a century. These hollow wooden figurines, shaped like squat bowling pins and painted ornately, come in sets that nest neatly one inside another.

On a recent visit to northeastern China, I learned that many nesting dolls are made in one small township here — Yimianpo. It's about 125 miles from the border with Russia.

In the late 19th century, when the Russian Empire started building rail lines to expand eastward, Yimianpo was a key stop. The matryoshka — or tao wa, as they're called in China — followed.

A workshop owner invited me into his carving shop. There, amid thigh-high piles of wood shavings, I watched an artisan hammer a block of linden wood from a nearby forest onto a lathe. Wielding gouges and chisels that looked like diabolical fire pokers, he shaped the wood into a rounded silhouette. Then he carved another. And another.

See more photos from around the world:

Please log in to like, share and comment!

Greetings from Yimianpo, China, where artisans carve Russian nesting dolls

Greetings from Yimianpo, China, where artisans carve Russian nesting dolls

Sponsored

Sponsored

Upgrade to Pro

Sponsored

Sponsored

Ads

Categories

Read More