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Dymkovskaya Toy

The Dymkovo settlement near the city of Kirov (formerly known as Vyatka) is the best known center of earthenware toy production. The settlement was established in the 15th century by the citizens of the Northern town of Veliky Ustyug who rebelled against Moscow domination and were exiled by the Tsar Ivan III to the remote regions. Some of them including many skilled craftsmen and toy makers moved to the place that was known as the town of Khlynov at the time.

The toys-making trade was primarily promoted by the needs of the local festival known as the "whistling celebration". There was a great demand during the festival for various whistles manufactured by the local craftsmen and shaped as figurines of birds, horses, and lambs. The festival is rooted in the pagan worship of Yarilo, the Slavic solar deity. Another ancient local festival stimulating the demand for toys included all kinds of popular entertainment such as community contests for fist fighters and making snowmen. In the 19th century such rural festivals were quite big affairs, they coincided with fairs and other trade events and continued for several days.

The Dymkovo toys were shaped of the local red clay mixed with fine river sand to prevent cracking during firing. First the massive base of a toy was shaped and then smaller fragments were attached to it (chest, arms, head, dress fringes, hair plaits, or head dresses). The finished toys were dried for several days, fired for three - four hours, primed with chalk dissolved in buttermilk, and painted with tempera paints over the white background. (It was only the Dymkovo toy makers who "whitened" their products by immersing them into a suspension of chalk powder in milk.) When the primed toy was drying in a draught a casein film appeared on the surface and fixed the chalk coating.

The most ancient motifs of the Dymkovo toys are the animals and birds. However, the Dymkovo toy trade is famous primarily for the colorful figurines of proud noble ladies, fat merchant wives, elegant gentlemen, valiant hussars, and groups of figurines depicting scenes from the circus life and open-air markets. The charmingly lively and often funny characters of the toys graphically represent the everyday life of a small Russian town in the 19th century.

The toy structure includes basically a bell-shaped skirt and a torso with attached small spherical head, bent arms, and diminutive children figures.

The Dymkovo toys are painted in as many as a dozen colors, rather than two or three, typical for other Russian earthenware toys. They are adorned with distinctive ornaments of squares, stripes, circles, loops, or dots. In conclusion a toy is decorated with diamonds of gold leaf which make it look extremely festive.

 

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