Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares small moments from their lives and work around the globe.
Matryoshka dolls—those hollow, nested wooden figures with ornate painted faces and patterns—are a Russian folk-art tradition more than a century old. Each set fits smaller dolls inside larger ones, a simple concept that became a beloved craft and a cultural emblem.
On a recent trip to northeastern China I found that many of these nesting dolls are made in Yimianpo, a small township roughly 125 miles from the Russian border. In the late 19th century, as the Russian Empire extended rail lines eastward, Yimianpo grew into an important stop. The matryoshka, called tao wa in Chinese, arrived and stayed as part of that cross-border exchange.
A local workshop owner let me inside his carving shop. Amid towering piles of wood shavings, I watched an artisan mount a block of linden from nearby forests onto a lathe. With sharp gouges and chisels he shaped the wood into rounded silhouettes, hollowing and smoothing each piece before moving on to the next—one nesting doll after another in a steady, practiced rhythm.
See more photos from around the world:
– Greetings from the Arctic Circle, where an icebreaker ship drew polar bears’ attention
– Greetings from Johannesburg, South Africa, amid jacaranda blooms
– Greetings from high in Colombia’s Andes, where ‘prairie-style meat’ is a local delicacy
– Greetings from an Indian Railways coach, with spectacular views from Mumbai to Goa
– Greetings from the Rhône Glacier, where a pink streak marks its melting