Another collection. Twenty years ago when I was expecting my third child, I received a matryoshka doll from a very special friend. That doll is the yellow one on the front row far right of the picture. I was thrilled and a new collection was born (along with my third daughter).

Of the matryoshka in this photo several were gifts but many were bought on the trip that included St Petersburg, Russsia. Street vendors sold these for amazing prices and the more you bought the lower the price would go, if you acted like you were going to walk away the price would drop again. Not one of the sets I bought was even $10, most were $5 or less. There is one set here we bought another time in the Czech Republic (the brown one in the back left), one was sent to us by a cousin who lives in Germany when D3 was sick, one was given to me by a sister (she got it from someone who had traveled to Romania). I have a few others that fall into the religious icon category, pictures of those at another time.

One interesting fact about matryoshka is that each town has a style of decoration particular to that town. If you know enough about the art, you can identify where a doll was painted - just by looking at it.