Muscovite Olga Sinyakina has collected a unique collection of New Year's toys from the 30s to the 60s of the last century.
Ticket to childhood
On the desktop in the theater New Opera Olga Sinyakina has a small Christmas tree. On the branches are glass harps, hares with drums, and even baskets of flowers that are given to artists after the concert. All toys are from the middle of the last century. All of them, one way or another, are connected with theater and music. And this, including the rare cotton Father Frost, is only a small part of the unique collection collected in an apartment in the south-west of Moscow. More than 4 thousand exhibits related to the most beloved children's holiday settled there. The youngest exhibits date back to the mid-sixties of the last century - since then the mass production of Christmas tree decorations began. And everything that was produced before was done mainly by hand. And these toys, which remember the warmth of the hands of our great-grandparents, are unique and inimitable.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
"Bear with a Soccer Ball"
The first exhibit in the Muscovite’s collection appeared like this. On the Christmas tree of the friends Olga came to visit, there was an amazing bear - with an accordion and in red shorts.
This was an amazing toy - from my childhood. - recalls the Muscovite. During the holidays, I stayed home alone, took a toy from the tree, wrapped it, played with it, and hung it back. And this bear, which I saw with friends, was from there, from childhood. It was even scratched the same way! I primarily associate this bear with the New Year and the huge Christmas tree that my parents decorated for me. And then, several decades later, I met him! I began to think: “Where is my bear from childhood? I myself have grown-up children, my parents have long been dead, and my parents’ house is no longer there either. Who got all those toys?
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Airships have been in fashion for a very long time
In the same year, a Muscovite attended an exhibition organized by a collector Soviet toys Kim Balashak. This American citizen lived in Russia for many years - she became very interested in the history of Soviet toys and collected an amazing collection. From the very first exhibition that Olga Sinyakina visited, the women fell in love with each other and became good friends.
She was a very wealthy lady and collected the collection professionally - she had exhibition glass cabinets, lighting, special stands for postcards,” says the Muscovite. - The richest collection, needless to say! It was replenished by professional agents who purposefully traveled to exhibitions and flea markets, buying toys. But, naturally, Kim did not know our history and fabulous folklore. For example, she once called me to tell me that she had finally managed to buy a “Bear with a Soccer Ball.” She invited me to see what kind of “soccer ball” it was. I arrive - and these are the heroes of the fairy tale “Kolobok”!
So, that visit to the guests at the Christmas tree and friendship with Kim Balashak became the starting point for Olga Sinyakina - these two events prompted her to start collecting her collection.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Toys from the fairy tale "Chippolino"
The first to live in the house was the same bear in red shorts - Olga bought him from some nice granny at a flea market. Now the Muscovite has seven such bears - the figures are the same, but since they are all painted by hand, each bear has its own color of underpants, accordion and, of course, its own unique facial expressions.
Over time, Olga collected all the toys from her children's Christmas tree. But it turned out that there are many other interesting toys. So they began to move from stalls at opening days and flea markets to a Moscow apartment in the southwest.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Doctor Aibolit
The doll world lives by its own laws, it has its own hierarchy, rules for decorating a tree. - says the collector. – My favorite ones are cotton ones from the 30s. But I also have a lot of glass ones. Each ball contains a glimpse of history. The events of the year were necessarily reflected in the theme New Year's toys.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Cheburashka is one of the symbols of the era
Oil rigs, cotton, corn, satellite, rocket, airships - each milestone was illustrated. During the era of northern exploration, many polar bears were released on skis. I have a collection of female pilots.
Christmas trees of war
Some exhibits in Olga’s collection are toys from military Christmas trees. They are, of course, unpretentious, almost all made by hand and “on the run,” but this makes them the most valuable. The enemy stood several kilometers near Moscow, but people still decorated their Christmas trees and believed - peacetime, Christmas trees, tangerines will definitely return!
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
I was watching documentary, there in a bomb shelter children dance in a round dance and it says “Happy New Year 1942.” - says the Muscovite. - The enemy is approaching, Moscow is in disguise, there’s a truck driving down the street carrying a Christmas tree! Many military toys were made from wire - the Moskabel plant, which supplied products to the front, made toys from scraps of wire, mainly snowflakes. There are toys made from officer's stripes. Snowflakes made of metallized foil, from which kefir plugs were made - there are the same owls, butterflies, and parrots. Decorated by hand. Whether they sold them or made them at home themselves, I don’t know.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
But human destinies are also connected with these toys. One day, at an exhibition, a family approached me. Descendants of Vera Duglova, artist Bolshoi Theater, her husband is also an artist. They were then sent for evacuation. Vera herself, who lived somewhere in the alleys of Arbat, remained. And the daughters and children left, including granddaughter Lena, whose name was Elochka. So they later gave me a diary, where “Mama Vera” talked about the days of the New Year’s war in Moscow, how, surprisingly, restaurants were still open then. How they changed fur collars for food and set New Year's tables.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Then times of famine came in Moscow. But in the provinces there were products in the markets. Only the things that were exchanged for food have already run out. And so grandma sends a cardboard chicken in a letter before the New Year and congratulates her on the New Year. The children were surprised by such a gift, shrugged their shoulders and hung it on the tree. And then another letter: “Girls, how did my chicken help you?” And the girls guessed: they opened the cardboard chicken, it was hollow inside - and there gold chain! “How we lived on this chicken, what products we were able to exchange!” - the now matured Yolochka later recalled.
The letters were opened and read by military censorship - sending something openly was risky. But no one paid attention to the cardboard chicken, which is hollow inside. So the chicken, which saved the whole family and the little girl Elochka from hunger, first hung on the tree in the family of artists for many years, and then ended up in the collection of Olga Sinyakina.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
The second life of the repressed Mishka
We also had a former artist named Rusla Grigorievna working in our music library. – the collector tells about another unique exhibit of his. - She was about 80 years old when she came to me with the words “Olya, I know you have large collection New Year's bears, I have a gift for you. I old man, I’m afraid that after my death my grandchildren will throw it away as unnecessary.” And he holds out the old, old bear. He is wrapped in a rag, dirty, greasy, there is no muzzle - instead there is a black stocking and buttons.
This was given to me for 1932,” explained the elderly artist and told her story.
Her father came under repression during his hard years. Fortunately, the man was not shot - he and his family were exiled to Vorkuta. In 1953, the family was rehabilitated. The simple belongings traveled for a long time in a freight car back to the capital. In Moscow they opened it up and gasped - the rats ate the bear’s entire face on the road. The muzzle kissed by the child turned out to be the most delicious and sweet place for the rodent.
It was the most expensive toy, I cried so much and couldn’t throw it away. – the old woman later recalled. - I darned it as best I could - sewed on a black stocking, buttons instead of eyes.
Olga Sinyakina took the bear to toy restorer Sergei Romanov. He identified the toy - he had the same one in his collection! He carefully tore open the furry one, took the remaining fabric from the legs and under the belly, and sewed a muzzle from these scraps, modeled after the twin from his collection. He put pants on his paws. I made a rag nose and eyes.
Then I came to Ruslana Grigorievna with this updated bear, warned her to sit down and take it out of her bag, says Olga Sinyakina. - Ruslana Grigorievna gasped: “He was like that!” - and cried from feelings.
This bear, no matter how much Olga asked her colleague to take her childhood friend back, still remained with the collector - now in the company of other bears, periodically goes to exhibitions and “lives a good life.” In total, the Muscovite has more than eighty bears in her collection. And this is a New Year's attribute! - after all, according to tradition, for many decades it was not Santa Claus, but a teddy bear, that was placed under the Christmas tree.
Later, at exhibitions, Muscovites, whose childhood was in the thirties, told me that before the war they never put Santa Claus under the Christmas tree, only a bear - this was a pre-revolutionary tradition. – says Sinyakina. - Yes, and Santa Claus in a red fur coat was then associated only with Red Army soldiers. And many had bad associations with this form during the years of repression.
Christmas tree made from a mop
At one time, celebrating the New Year in the USSR was banned. In the mid-20s, there was an active campaign to deny “priestly holidays” - “Komsomol Christmastide” came into fashion, the new government ridiculed New Year and Christmas customs, plus the change of the calendar had an effect. Officially, the New Year was returned to its holiday status only in 1935.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Clock - can be hung or attached to a clothespin
But people still continued to celebrate even during the years of the ban. Although you could get a real sentence for decorating a Christmas tree. – says Olga Sinyakina. - At one of the exhibitions, an elderly lady approached me, who lived in the legendary House on the Embankment in the 30s. In the 1930s, residents of this house still rinsed their laundry in the Moscow River the old-fashioned way. And he and the local janitor had an agreement. He brought a Christmas tree from the forest in advance, disassembled it into spruce branches and hid it not far from the shore. And at each entrance there was a sentry at the exit - he checked everyone coming and going. And so, after the prearranged signal, the residents walked with basins and linen to the river. They showed the basin to the sentry at the exit. These hidden branches were found on the shore and hidden under linen. They brought it home. At home they took a mop. My husband drilled holes in it in advance. The branches were inserted into these holes. Over the course of a few “washes,” a quite nice “Christmas tree” was assembled - it was decorated with sweets, tangerines and homemade toys.
But the holiday then had a religious character.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Antique tear-off calendar
Pearls and children's tears
Traditional pre-revolutionary New Year's gifts are bonbonnieres. On Christmas and Angel's Day they put a pearl in them. When the girl came of age, she collected a necklace.
Then, already under Soviet rule, for twenty years in a row classical New Year's gift were teddy bears. The children valued them very much. Sometimes truly fantastic stories happened with such gifts. The hero of this story, a teddy bear, now lives in a collector’s apartment. The toy has an amazing biography.
In 1941, three-year-old Fedya, who lived in Leningrad, was given a New Year bear – says Olga Sinyakina. - The boy loved this toy very much. In the summer of 1941, the boy’s father went to the front. Didn't come back. The blockade began - mother and grandmother died of hunger in front of Fedya’s eyes, and the child, half-dead, looking like a skeleton, with thin arms and legs, was then taken out for evacuation. All this time, the baby held onto the bear with a death grip - it was impossible to take the toy from the boy. But no one, seeing how much the child valued him, insisted. So they, Fedya and Misha, left for Perm. From there the boy was later taken to Moscow by distant relatives in the capital. The child arrived with the same toy. This was the only thing left of his family. Already an adult, Fedya kept this bear as the most main value. After death, relatives gave the toy as a gift.
Photo: Olga Sinyavskaya
Christmas decorations can tell about the history of the country no less than archival documentsThe history of the country can be studied, including from New Year's tree decorations, say collectors, whose collection includes unique New Year decorations different eras made of dough, glass, earthenware, stamped in millions and created in a single copy.
“No end, no edge” made of glass and cotton wool. Olga Sinyakina has already come to terms with the fact that she won’t be able to collect all the toys. There are no series, no descriptions, no documents. But there is no year, era, or family whose Christmas tree she cannot recreate.
Olga Sinyakina, collector: “The Christmas tree before the revolution - you want to walk around it slowly, sing different songs, in general - a different mood, in different clothes.”
Before the revolution, gifts were not hidden under a tree, but were locked in palm-sized suitcases and traveling bags. In one of the families in a similar hiding place, every year the daughter was given a pearl - a gift without a surprise. But for the 18th birthday, a necklace was collected. All covered in candles, dough toys, but most importantly - a symbol of Christmas.
No matter what era the tree is, you can always find Christmas symbols on it. The Kremlin star is actually the Star of Bethlehem. The birth of the Savior is announced by everything that glows - garlands, rain and tinsel.
The gifts of the Magi are the second symbol. Fruits - pears, and mainly apples - were transformed into glass balls. And you can take communion with gingerbread. It was the third character that remained truly edible the longest.
The Christmas tree tradition itself was learned from the Germans. In St. Petersburg, Europeans placed pine bouquets on the table. The idea was adopted on a Russian scale.
Elena Dushechkina, doctor philological sciences, professor at St. Petersburg State University: “Since we had forests, God forbid, the higher the better, no matter how we decorated them.”
For several years, toys were no longer needed. In 1929, Christmas, Santa Claus, and Christmas trees were banned. The newsreel footage shows that instead of coniferous trees there are silhouettes of palm trees.
In 1936, the holiday was suddenly returned by one decree. Enterprises urgently repurposed themselves for the New Year. The Dmitrov Faience Plumbing Factory churned out Father Frost instead of sinks and toilets.
Olga Sinyakina, collector: “This product is somehow visible here. The toy is very heavy, a rough hole, black dots.”
A Christmas tree toy is always a symbol of time. In the 70s, factory stamping on a national scale replaced handmade. It is no longer valuable to collectors. But even an unremarkable ball seems to take you back to the time when Christmas trees were big, New Year's Eve- magical, and Grandfather Frost - real.
Correspondent Yana Podziuban
In the Moscow Museum contemporary art The exhibition “Transformation of Consciousness”, dedicated to the abstract artist Eliy Belyutin and his studio “ New reality"in Abramtsevo, which existed from 1958 to 1991. More than three thousand people, as its ideologist himself claimed, came from it - Belutins. To them, the artist's students, to a greater extent and the exhibition space of the museum was given over. Olga Uskova, the initiator of the exhibition, collector, businesswoman (she is the president of Cognitive Technologies) and founder of the Foundation for Russian Abstract Art, calls Belyutin himself a brilliant methodologist, but not a brilliant artist. About her collection of Belyutins, the importance of their heritage for world art, the “Theory of Universal Contact” and her future museum Olga Uskova ARTANDHOUSES.
Is the exhibition at MMSI the first major display of the Belyutin heritage?
No. The pioneer in this matter was the Russian Museum in 2014, which agreed to host the exhibition in three months, in an incredible time frame, and gave us a good platform. Many thanks to them for this!
Was the exhibition initiated by you and your foundation?
Yes, we came to the Russian Museum with this topic, and suddenly they said: “That’s it, go ahead!” This was a completely unexpected reaction for us. Because at the same time, we went to the Tretyakov Gallery with this idea when the previous management was still there. I am happy with the appointment of Zelfira Tregulova, because I will never forget the conversation with the ex-director (Irina Lebedeva - ARTANDHOUSES). For me it was some kind of excursion into the inertia of the art world.
How did the public perceive the work then?
Then it was an experiment for us. We had little idea of the state of society and its readiness to perceive this phenomenon, this art. When we worked at the Russian Museum, we worked blindly. Firstly, this is St. Petersburg, there is less traffic there, even though it is the Russian Museum. Therefore, we organized the exhibition without major investments. But when we discovered a queue to the interactive halls, not in the first days, but in the middle of its work, it was a shock and joy for us! It felt like we were definitely in a state of time, a state of the head.
What was in the interactive rooms?
We held competitions back then. After viewing the exhibition in the last hall, viewers assembled paintings from magnetic elements using Belyutin’s method. The puzzles were cut in accordance with his basic symbols, and there was a task similar to Belyutin's task. A man collected a picture on a magnetic board, photographed himself with it and sent it to the Internet. The expert group selected the ones most relevant to the task and interesting pictures. The quality of these paintings was amazing! We saved this photo gallery and there were winners. I want to say that the winners that were selected by the art history commission and the paintings that I personally liked were different from each other. But the overall quality was surprising. For me, these paintings are just the emotional result of viewing the exhibition.