Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
Matryoshka dolls are a Russian folk-art tradition more than a century old. These hollow wooden figures, shaped like squat pins and painted with ornate designs, come in sets that nest inside one another.
On a recent trip to northeastern China I discovered that many of these nesting dolls are produced in a small township called Yimianpo, about 125 miles from the Russian border. In the late 19th century, when the Russian Empire built rail lines to expand east, Yimianpo became a key stop and the matryoshka — known in China as tao wa — accompanied that exchange.
A workshop owner invited me into his carving shop. Amid thigh-high piles of wood shavings, I watched an artisan secure a block of linden from a nearby forest on a lathe. Using gouges and chisels that looked fierce, he turned the wood into a rounded silhouette, then repeated the process again and again, carving one nesting doll after another.
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, where spring bursts with jacaranda blooms
– Greetings from high up in Colombia’s Andes, where ‘prairie-style meat’ is a delicacy
– Greetings from an Indian Railways coach, with spectacular views from Mumbai to Goa
– Greetings from the Rhône Glacier, where a gash of pink highlights how it’s melting