From Russia, With Love

I went to my friend Jackie's with the twins this morning. Jackie is 81. Jackie has LOTS of knick knacks. LOTS of them are glass. I almost need a valium to survive a visit with the twosome on the loose in her house. Everything is so pretty and so interesting and SO fragile (with a few exceptions). Rita and Anthony have found some things that are not so fragile like some large glass balls, some metal containers and an antique wooden duck decoy that they play with.

Jackie suggested I get the Russian matryoshka doll from the shelf in the back bedroom for them to play with. A matryoshka doll, also known as a Russian nested doll or a babushka doll, is a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other. The word "matryoshka" (матрёшка) is derived from the Russian female first name "Matryona" (Матрёна). The word "babushka" is the Russian word for grandmother.

They immediately started to fight over that. I noticed another "nesting doll" on the shelf, this one was male. I asked Jackie if Anthony could play with that one. I said, "it kind of looks like Gorbachev." Jackie told me someone brought the doll back from Russia for her years ago.

This is what I learned about these nesting dolls from Wikipedia: During Perestroika, the leaders of the Soviet Union became a common theme depicted on matreshki. Starting with the largest, Mikhail Gorbachev, then Leonid Brezhnev (Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko almost never appear due to the short length of their respective terms), then Nikita Khrushchev, Josef Stalin and finally the smallest, Vladimir Lenin. Newer versions start with Dmitry Medvedev and then follow with Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Joseph Stalin and then Vladimir Lenin.

Our set starts with Yeltsin, then Gorbachev, then Brezhnev, then Khrushchev, then Stalin, the smallest is Lenin. We had a "Babushka" doll at home that Karl got from a co-worker last year, so Rita still has one to play with. They have spent the entire day playing with them.

Now, my fellow right wing American blog followers, do not think ill of me for letting the kids play with commie dolls. First, they are two, and have no idea who the commies were (and neither does the 8 year old) and second, you come try to separate Anthony from "Gorby" and we will go out for the evening while you deal with that. I took the dolls away from them for nap time, and let's just say, I am not sure it was worth it.

Anyhow, we have a bit of history in our house that is also a new and wonderful toy. I titled the post "From Russia With Love" because these dolls will always remind me of my visit with Jackie and the love she has for my family and my kids. We love you too Jackie!