Romanov Toys

THINK HANDCRAFTED RUSSIAN TOYS, AND THE MATROSHKA IS usually what comes to mind.

Take a closer look, however, and it turns out that, across Russia, there are countless unique, historically rooted local toy industries. For example, Lipetsk oblast has the Romanov toy.

The history of the Romanov toy dates to the sixteenth century, when boyars of the Romanov family resettled their peasants from a neighboring province to establish Romanovo, a fortified settlement in what is now Lipetsk oblast. A few decades later, Ivan Romanov, a close relative of Tsar Mikhail Romanov (the dynasty’s first tsar, reigning 1613-1645), built an ostrog, a fenced-in settlement there. By the eighteenth century, the Romanovo fort had become the town of Romanov.

Today, the town is no more. The spot where it once stood is now occupied by two villages: Lenino and Troitskoye.

The area was always rich in deposits of clay: black, red, yellow, and white. Dishware made with this clay was sold in neighboring villages and at markets and fairs held in the town of Lipetsk, the district center.

Black clay, the most pliant and durable of the local varieties, was used to make toys, primarily svistulki, toy flutes, often in the form of an animal. Taking on the “brand name” of their town, they came to be known as “Romanov svistulki.” One of the most famous crafters of these toys was Ivan Mitin, who worked doggedly to recreate the world around him in the form of toys. He even fashioned a little officer with the face of Nicholas II, Russia’s last tsar.