Matryoshka dolls multiply in forests of northeastern China — with a little help
HARBIN — Spring Festival was coming, and Ren Jiqing was busy making matryoshka dolls in his workshop. Those are the dolls with a series of smaller figures, each nested inside its predecessor.
“Matryoshka dolls are quite popular during the holidays, and demand from retailers is great,” Ren said. “Some even reserved dolls for the May Day holiday this year.”
Ren, 57, owns a factory that makes the nesting dolls in Yimianpo township in Heilongjiang province, and has been engaged in the business for almost 20 years.
Yimianpo is a major production base for matryoshka dolls in China, with annual sales volume reaching nearly 15 million sets. In the early 20th century, many Russians settled in the town, which was a critical point on a railway line in the northeast. They brought the craftsmanship of producing matryoshka dolls with them, and it was passed along to Chinese residents.
Ren’s factory covers an area of more than 200 square meters, and handles the complete doll-making process, from wood drying, cutting and polishing to drawing and packaging.
“Though the dolls are small, the procedures are quite complicated,” Ren said.
In Ren’s factory, finished and halffinished dolls fill the shelves, and workers are kept busy tinting, drawing flowers, adding color, and painting eyebrows and eyes.
“My dolls are all about handmade craftsmanship,” Ren said. “Every stroke is done by hand rather than by machine.”
Xie Lihua, 40, has been painting the dolls for 13 years. She started by painting flowers, and focused on the eyes as her skills matured.
“I can make about 170 sets of matryoshka dolls a day,” Xie said. There are 10 small dolls in one set, with nine nesting inside the largest one.
Yimianpo township is situated near forests that provide abundant raw materials, such as birch and basswood, and which have contributed to the explosive growth of the industry. In the 1950s, locals began to make what were dubbed Yimianpo matryoshka dolls by imitating the styles of the Russian dolls, and the industry soared.
Liang Xianchun, 50, is one of the industry’s pioneers. In the 1990s, Liang, who learned painting in college, was fascinated by the dolls and became involved in making them.
“Because I learned painting, I started to paint the dolls myself,” Liang said.
Liang also employed several people in Yimianpo to paint flowers and add colors to the dolls. But the scale of the business and its sales were quite limited at first.
“It took seven or eight years before sales increased significantly,” Liang said.
Yimianpo is home to more than 60 doll-making factories, with more than 2,000 people employed in an industry with annual revenues of about $45 million. The dolls are sold in a variety of tourist cities and on e-commerce platforms.
Traditional matryoshka dolls are in the form of Russian women, but as time went by, they took on new looks, including fortune cats.
“We change the shapes in accordance with market demand,” Ren said.
Last year, Ren’s factory earned more than 1 million yuan ($148,600) in revenue.
“My New Year’s resolution is to take the dolls’ quality to the next level,” Ren said.