Traditional Russian Dolls Seek Bailout

SERGIYEV POZAD, Russia, July 5, 2009— -- In Russia, the traditional nesting doll, known as the matryoshka, is getting a bailout.

Like vodka, caviar and onion domes, the rosy-cheeked, often partly hand-painted dolls within dolls are a symbol of everything Russian. And they are broke.

Matryoshka makers claim sales are down as much as 90 percent as Russia continues to be ravaged by the global economic crisis.

Svetlana Pankova runs the Sergiyev Pozad toy factory, located in the scenic old monastery town of Sergiyev Pozad, the heart of Russia's matryoshka industry.

She explained that with tourism on the wane and domestic consumption in the dumps, the storage room at the factory is now filled with matryoshkas that they can't sell.

"Unfortunately, at this time, there are over 1,000 matryoshkas in the stockroom," Pankova told ABC News. "And this is at the height of the tourist season. In these times, without the government's support, the matryoshka industry cannot survive."

Many of the artisans in Pankova's workshop have been making the brightly colored dolls for decades.

Vera Meryana, who has been working as a matryoshka-maker for 35 years. Both her father and mother, and now her children, also worked in the industry. She now fears that the livelihood of fellow artisans, and a valuable part of Russian tradition, may be lost forever.

"We have done this all our lives. I can remember the matryoshkas as long as I can remember myself," she told ABC News, "I grew up surrounded with them. And my children too. You can imagine after working in this all your life and watching how it is all dying out, of course it's very sad, We'd like to see a revival."