A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
When you think of things that are quintessentially Russian, you might think of those painted wooden nesting dolls stacked one inside another. NPR's John Ruwitch visited the place where most of the world's stacking dolls are made, and he found something quintessential.
JOHN RUWITCH, BYLINE: The train to this small town zips by rolling hills and butterscotch fields of ripe corn. And when it slows to a stop, we're about 125 miles from the border between Russia and China. But not on the Russian side.
AUTOMATED VOICE: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: This is Yimianpo in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHISTLE)
RUWITCH: Stacking dolls are important here. There are silhouette statues of them at a major road junction and bright paintings of them on some of the town walls. There have been estimates in Chinese state media that some 90% of the world's stacking dolls are produced here in Yimianpo.
WANG HAISHAN: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Wang Haishan (ph) runs one of the biggest companies that makes them here in town.
H WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: He shows us a small workshop where, he explains, the unfinished dolls are created.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)
H WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: It starts with a linden wood log about 4 inches thick and 18 inches long, stripped of its bark. It's hammered onto a lathe.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHISELING)
RUWITCH: A man in a backwards ball cap and mask hollows it out with long metal chisels that look like bladed fireplace pokers. Then he wields a gouge to form the doll's squat, bowling pin-like shape. Each doll is a little smaller than the one before it so they can stack up one inside the other. Some sets have six. Others have 10 or even more.
H WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
(SOUNDBITE OF CHISELING)
RUWITCH: You can tell they produce a lot. The floor, work benches and window sills are covered in wood shavings. Wang got his start on a lathe after middle school.
H WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: He worked his way along the assembly line, then opened his own company to make stacking dolls - or tao wa, as they're called in Chinese.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHISELING)
RUWITCH: Matryoshka is the Russian term, and the first ones were made in Russia in the late 1800s. At that time, the Russian Empire was at its peak, Tolstoy and Chekhov in their prime. The government was building rail lines to expand the empire eastward. They cut through Manchuria, and Yimianpo was a stop along the line. Matryoshka followed.
WANG XIAO'ER: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: When the carving is done, the blank wooden forms are sent down the road to one of Wang's paint shops. A lone woman listens to a radio program on her phone as she dabs green paint on dolls. Traditional nesting dolls often bear images of Russian peasant women - babushkas - with ruddy cheeks and headscarves.
X WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Wang Xiao'er (ph) shows one with a Russian-looking castle on it. Others elsewhere are painted with pandas or historical figures like Stalin and Mao. Presumably, there's a market. As for the work, it's pretty flexible, with people coming in from neighboring villages.
X WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Wang Xiao'er says it allows her to earn some money while looking after her child, who goes to school here in town. Most of her co-workers are out for the day, harvesting crops.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
RUWITCH: This is a hardscrabble part of China where the government has struggled for years to revitalize the economy. Millions of people have left for greener pastures. But company owner Wang Haishan and his compatriots churning out Russian stacking dolls here in Yimianpo seem to have figured out a way to make things work. Wang says his company has been growing.
H WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: And he shows us a made-in-Russia nesting doll that he bought as a sample to learn from.
H WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
(SOUNDBITE OF PLASTIC CRINKLING)
X WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
H WANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
RUWITCH: Thing is, he says, his nesting dolls are more intricate, and they're cheaper.
John Ruwitch, NPR News, Yimianpo, China. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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