Sweetheart from Tver [Vintage, Enhanced]

Product Description

Milashechka from Tver (Милашечка из Твери). This cute Kalinin (see below) matryoshka's name means "sweetheart". She is made from thicker wood with many decorative elements which are both painted and burnt in with a poker. What's unusual about her is that the first doll has been enhanced with additional painted elements, which could have been done at the factory or afterwards, and then sold in the marketplaces of Moscow. A cat was even added! According the the original owner, she came to the US right after 1991. 5 nest, from 3¾" down to ⅞". 1 only, as shown.

This matryoshka (Калининская Матрешка) was made in Kalinin, a city situated on the Upper Volga River. In fact, it was the medieval city of Tver, whose name was changed to one of Stalin's allies (Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin). After 1991, many cities were restored to their pre-Soviet names, for example Sergiev Posad (Zagorsk), Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin), Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) to name just a few.