Babuhska doll

Nesting dolls are the best known and most popular of all Russian souvenirs. The Russian word for these wooden dolls is matryoshka, but they are also called matrioshka, matreshka, matriochka, babushka or babooshka dolls, babushka's doll, matroshka, matruska, matryushka, and stacking dolls.

Whatever you want to call them, nesting dolls have a fascinating history, and they are the classic Russian gift. The most traditional nesting doll design is one that looks like a young Russian woman dressed in Russian native costume with a scarf on her head. In the traditional nesting doll sets all of the dolls look almost identical to one another, and the number of dolls in the set ranges from 5 to 30, but some custom made matryoshkas contain many more. In other cases, the set forms a theme, such as the classic sets of nesting dolls of Russian leaders, with each earlier leader nested inside. That is a doll inside a doll inside another doll and so on.