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Playable heritage game

Matryoshka

Also known as Матрёшка · nesting dolls

A matryoshka is a hollow wooden doll, turned from lime or birch, that opens to show a smaller doll inside and so on down to a solid one no bigger than a bean. Its round, flared body is painted as a woman in a kerchief, apron and flowered skirt.

Play the previewAbout this tradition
Matryoshka: photograph by Лапоть
Photo: Лапоть, CC0, source on Wikimedia Commons
Matryoshka: the game in attract modeLive previewPlay

Runs in your browser, works offline once loaded.

How to play

  1. Look at the doll in the frame: a narrow foot, wide hips, a rounded head.
  2. Drag across each row of the spinning wood to set how wide it is.
  3. Press Glaze, choose a colour and fill the five bands from skirt to kerchief.
  4. Press Check to see how close your doll is.
Rules at a glance
  • Twelve rows of wood, each from one to ten steps wide.
  • Seventy points for the outline and thirty for the colour bands.
  • Three stars need an almost exact shape and colours in the right order.

About the tradition

The first Russian set was turned in a Moscow workshop in the 1890s, and makers in Sergiyev Posad, Semyonov and Polkhovsky Maidan later developed their own faces, scarves and flowers. Dolls are turned on a lathe from seasoned linden, each shell made to fit the next, then painted by hand and varnished.

Origins

A living tradition passed from person to person; it is not tied to a single dated origin. It belongs to the cultural world of Northern and Eastern Europe.

Credits

Sources

Get the app

Matryoshka is one of 20 paper and paint crafts in the Paper & Paint of the World app for iPhone, iPad and Android. Submitted to the App Store and Google Play; in review. Store links appear here the day it goes live. One app, many traditions, no account needed.

See all 20 paper and paint crafts in the app

In review on theApp StoreIn review on theGoogle Play

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