Romanov Toys

Think handcrafted Russian toys, and the matroshka is usually what comes to mind. Take a closer look, however, and it turns out that, across Russia, there are countless unique, historically rooted local toy industries. For example, Lipetsk oblast has the Romanov toy.

The history of the Romanov toy dates to the sixteenth century, when boyars of the Romanov family resettled their peasants from a neighboring province to establish Romanovo, a fortified settlement in what is now Lipetsk oblast. A few decades later, Ivan Romanov, a close relative of Tsar Mikhail Romanov (the dynasty’s first tsar, reigning 1613-1645), built an ostrog, a fenced-in settlement there. By the eighteenth century, the Romanovo fort had become the town of Romanov.

Today, the town is no more. The spot where it once stood is now occupied by two villages: Lenino and Troitskoye.

The area was always rich in deposits of clay: black, red, yellow, and white. Dishware made with this clay was sold in neighboring villages and at markets and fairs held in the town of Lipetsk, the district center.

Black clay, the most pliant and durable of the local varieties, was used to make toys, primarily svistulki, toy flutes, often in the form of an animal. Taking on the “brand name” of their town, they came to be known as “Romanov svistulki.” One of the most famous crafters of these toys was Ivan Mitin, who worked doggedly to recreate the world around him in the form of toys. He even fashioned a little officer with the face of Nicholas II, Russia’s last tsar.

These toys were fired in a gorn, a type of metal furnace wider than it is tall, that was either wholly or partially underground. The ashes were used to fertilize garden plots, and sometimes little shards of toy figurines would wind up mixed in. In the 1960s, one resident of Troitskoye, Viktor Markin, found such shards in his own garden and started to ask the village’s old timers what they were. That was when he learned about his native region’s former toy-making glory.

Viktor decided to try his hand at making Romanov toys, but he was not very successful. After watching his son struggle, Viktor’s father recommended that he ask Ivan Gunkin for guidance. Gunkin had learned the local art from his own father, and was considered a master toymaker. Viktor soon became Gunkin’s apprentice.

In 1986, while studying history at Lipetsk Pedagogical University by correspondence, Viktor got a job in the village school in Troitskoye. In the school’s basement, he organized a club devoted to making Romanov toys. He researched the types of toys that had been made and passed this knowledge on to the children.

“The Romanov Toy Center grew out of Viktor Markin’s club,” says Alina Teperik, deputy director of Lipetsk oblast’s Tourism Center, of which the toy center is a part. “The club was given a building that was part of the old village school. Later, the Lipetsk oblast government decided to open the Romanov Toy Center in Troitskoye to help preserve the craft.

The Cast of Characters

At first, the toys produced were small and intended solely for children. Every figurine had a special significance: the dog symbolized a protector of the family hearth, turkeys served as talismans to keep children safe, and “the goat who lives in the rye field” (a mythical German “field spirit” that made its way into Russian folk culture) was thought to bring households a good grain harvest. Later, artisans added ducks, sheep, and cows to the menagerie.

When the area started attracting an upscale class of tourists in the early nineteenth century, after Alexander I decreed that a resort be established around Lipetsk’s mineral waters, figurines of strolling young couples and military officers began to appear. At this point the toys started to grow in size.

Today the toys produced by Romanov artisans take more than forty different forms. One that is unique to these craftspeople is a one-horse sled. Sleigh-riding has always been a symbol of holiday fun, but the sleigh-riders produced by the Romanov toymakers are not the typical sort. For example, one holds a military officer and a fine lady. By tradition, their sleds are always pulled by just one horse.

The toymakers fashioned their version of Bereginya, a character from eastern Slavic mythology, with local features, dressing her in local peasant dress, with a brightly colored skirt and a red shirt with many colored ribbons and shiny beads.

The original Romanov toys were designed to keep children safe, both as svistulki, whose musical tones kept evil spirits away, and as good luck charms. The flutes were also thought to help develop children’s lungs. Once the figurines became more elaborate, depicting noblewomen and hussars, not all of them were designed as flutes. The human figures usually did not have holes to blow in, but they held little larks in their hands that did.

“At the Romanov Toy Center, the toys are replicas rather than new designs,” Teperik says. “In keeping with tradition, everything is painted in red, yellow, and green, with silver trim.”

The Toy-Making

Making each toy is a very labor-intensive process. Markin, who continues to work at the center, describes how each Romanov toy comes to life. In fact, during the interview, which took place in his workshop, he continued to ply his craft.

“First you have to prepare the clay, getting every last root and pebble out of it,” he explained as he carefully examined a lump of clay. “Once I’m sure that nothing is left that shouldn’t be there, I start chopping at the clay with a little wooden board, until it becomes more homogenous. Unless you knead thoroughly, it might still contain little pieces of limestone, and the toy will crack in the kiln.”

Markin focuses silently on his work. After carefully kneading the clay and giving it a thorough inspection, he continues his explanation:

“Now the clay is ready. You can get to work. There are three molding techniques: pelmen, katushka, and kukan. The molding technique you choose depends on the type of toy you’re making. The pelmen technique, where you fold over a flattened circle and pinch the edges, leaving it hollow inside [as if making a pelmeni dumpling], is usually used for birds, goats, and other simple figures. The katushka method, where you roll a short, fat cylinder that is pinched and bent, is most often used for dogs and horses. Young ladies are made using the kukan technique, forming a cavity inside a cone, the bell-shape of a skirt.”

Once the clay is shaped, it is set aside to dry. This takes at least 24 hours. The figurine is then fired. These days, the gorn has been replaced by electric kilns that can heat the pottery to 1900-1950 degrees Celsius (approximately 3500 degrees Fahrenheit).

After firing, the toys have to again be left to stand, so that the clay can harden. Toys are then glazed or painted with water colors thickened with egg yolk and PVA glue. Silver paint is added as a finishing touch.

According to Markin, “It takes at least a week to make a simple toy.” He has just completed the head of a bird and is working on its tail, which will be the flute’s mouthpiece. “If it’s a complicated composition, it takes longer. It’s interesting that even when the same person makes the same figure, it always turns out differently.”

Upholding Traditions

At the first All-Russian Folk Toy Festival, held in Tula in 1995, Markin received a first-place prize. It was the first victory for Romanov toys and their master craftsman, and it led to exhibitions not just throughout Russia, but also abroad, including in Italy and China. Three years later, Markin was named a People’s Artisan of Russia.

Over the years, Markin has trained more than five hundred students who themselves are now training the next generation. Among them are Olga Volokitina, Snezhanna Ilyina, and Anastasiya Korolenko, who themselves are now People’s Artisans of Russia. Today, Romanov toys can be found in museums in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other Russian and foreign cities.

In 2010, the artisans took part in the Ninth All-Russia Exhibition of Folk Arts in Russia, “Ladya–2010.” For the festival, they produced giant figures: a rooster, a turkey, and Romanov toy’s own version of Bereginya. All the pieces were accepted as Guinness World Records. Korolenko was given an award “For Preserving Folk Art Traditions.”

“However, winning awards at competitions and festivals, even at the national and international levels, is not what’s most important to us,” Teperik says. “What is most important is that the art lives on.”

Indeed, at the Romanov Toy Center master classes are being held for schoolchildren, and professional folk artisans continue to hone their skills, while the center regularly takes part in regional and national folk-toy festivals. Markin is also still hard at work, passing on his knowledge. Locals continue to find shards of toys in their gardens and bring them to the center, where researchers into the history of the Romanov toy are discovering and resurrecting toys of past eras.

This is all a sure sign that the Romanov toy is known well beyond the borders of Lipetsk oblast – and that its reputation will live far into the future.