Dymkovo toys, also known as the Vyatka toys or Kirov toys ( in

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

) are moulded painted

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

figures of people and animals (sometimes in the form of a

pennywhistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. ...

). It is one of the old

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

handicraft A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

s, which still exists in the village of Dymkovo near Kirov (former Vyatka). Traditionally, the Dymkovo toys are made by women. The tradition of making pennywhistles in the form of a horse, a horse rider, and a bird goes back to the ancient magic ritual images and has to do with the

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...

holidays. Later, the little figures lost their magic meaning and turned into toys for children, the making of which would become an artistic handicraft. Up until the 20th century, this toy production had been timed to the spring fair called ''свистунья'', or whistler. The first recorded mentioning of this event took place in 1811, but it is believed to have existed for some 400 years, thus dating the history of the Dymkovo toy at least from the 17th century. In the late 19th century the handicraft fell into decline because the Dymkovo toys had been forced out of the market by the

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

-made moulded

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...

statuettes, which imitated

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...

articles. During

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

times, however, the Dymkovo handicraft was revived. In 1933, they organized an

artel An artel (russian: арте́ль) was any of several types of cooperative associations and (later) corporate enterprises in the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. They began centuries ago but were especially prevalent ...

called ''Вятская игрушка'' (The Vyatka Toy), which would turn into a

workshop Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the only ...

of the Artistic Fund of the RSFSR (russian: Художественный фонд РСФСР). These days, the Dymkovo toys are known as a popular Russian

souvenir A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

. The Dymkovo toys are moulded from a mixture of local

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US * Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska * Potters, New Je ...

's clay and river

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...

. The parts are then fastened together with watery clay. After the toys are dried and tempered in a

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, they are whitewashed with

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

diluted in milk, then painted with

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

(before 1953, the artists used

aniline Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the simplest aromatic amine In organic chemistry, an aromatic amine is an organic compound consisting of an aroma ...

paints ground with eggs) in 4 to 10 (or more) colors, and decorated with

gold leaf Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-kara ...

. Modern Dymkovo toys include ancient motifs, as well as those of the second half of the 19th century, such as ''барыни'' (barynyas, or landladies), ''няньки'' (nyanki, or nannies), ''водоноски'' (vodonoski, or female watercarriers) and others. In the 1930s, the Dymkovo toys began to depict

fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...

s and a contemporary lifestyle. There were also multi-character compositions on stands, and figures of people taller than 30 cm. Massive, abstract, and somewhat grotesque forms of the Dymkovo toys are emphasized by ruffles, puffed collars, and other features. The improvised bright painting of the toys represents a geometric ornament of circles, checks, and dots of different colors and sizes.

References

* Энциклопедия земли Вятской. Том 10, Ремёсла. ГИПП «Вятка», 2000 год. / The Encyclopedia of Vyatka Land. Vol. 10, Handicrafts. Vyatka, 2000. .
Dymkovo toy: all about the history and the best makers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dymkovo Toys Russian culture Russian inventions Russian handicrafts Clay toys Traditional toys Culture of Kirov Oblast

See also

References