Modern Matryoshkas

Wooden doll with modern faces, originally uploaded by andreaban2009.

Look what else we found at the Central Market Hall, Budapest ( also known as Nagy Vasarcsarnok...quite a mouthful) Try saying that really fast without sounding silly. See! You can't. Little Russian dolls but this time, instead of the traditional face and costume...we have faces of presidents of various countries. 4300 florinths per doll. I didn't buy them. I have more pictures of the Central Market Hall but let me just say more thing about it here. The path from Vaci Utca to Central market hall is theoretically one straight line. What we didn't factor in was the rather messy construction right smack in the middle of Vaci street forcing you to walk either to the right or left but not the middle of the street. And the construction goes almost throughout the length of this shopping street. It put a slight dampener on the speed of shopping. We took a wrong turn ( or two) and went en route in a convoluted manner.

Matryoshka dolls

little russian doll fridge magnets, originally uploaded by andreaban2009.

We saw a lot of these dolls, which I now know the proper name. (Having googled it) They're Russian in origin which may make you ask why are they seen in abundance in Budapest. First let's just have a go at describing them. They're wooden dolls shaped like an elongated egg. Their colors are gorgeous but you will have to take some time to look at each face. Some faces look better than others. Some have blonde hair but most have jet black hair.

The real Matryoshka dolls are a set of wooden dolls which have one doll inside another. As you remove them and set down aside, their sizes decrease until you finally come to a single weeny one. The more nested dolls in the set...you more you'll have to pay.And they're all made from a single block of wood. Interesting yes?

The Russians ruled over Hungary for many years. So its inevitable we see a strong influence in their culture and souvenir:)