Set of 5 beautifully finished Matryoshka dolls from Vietnam.

A matryoshka (Russian: Матрёшка) is a hollow wooden doll that is part of a series of smaller and smaller interlocking dolls. The dolls can be opened by means of a seam in the "tummy", except for the smallest, which is often painted as a baby. A matryoshka usually consists of seven or eight dolls, but other numbers also occur. The price of the dolls depends on the number of dolls in the set (varying from four to a few dozen), the quality of the image and the subjects. They are popular souvenirs among tourists who visit Russia. The traditional matryoshka depicts a peasant girl (or boy, with the exception of the outer doll, which is always a girl) in traditional clothing. On the belly of each doll is a figurative image or a painting with a specific theme. It is important in that case that each figure shows an image that is part of the set, but is not a smaller copy of one of the previous ones. Traditional subjects include churches, landmarks, fairy tales, and religious images. The variants with politicians, athletes and other famous people are often painted cartoonish, in contrast to traditional matryoshkas. The dolls are made of birch or lime wood.