‘Many, many years ago, in the village of Bogorodskoye, situated on top of a hill near Sergiev-Posad, a woman decided to entertain her children. She took a piece of wood, cut a figure from it with a knife and called it ‘Auka’. (Russian people traditionally say to quiet children, ‘Au-u-u…’.) She gave it to her children who played with it happily, then left it in a place behind her stove. The next day her husband went to Sergiev-Posad market to do some shopping. He decided to take ‘Auka’ with him and showed it to some merchants at the market. They bought it from him and ordered some more ‘Aukas’. In this way the art of woodcarving and toy-making in Bogorodskoye was born.’

Nobody knows exactly when the tradition began, but it is certain that the toys were selling in the markets in the seventeenth century. Peter the Great is known to have given Bogorodskoye toys to his son. Many of the designs are based closely on the themes of Russian legends and fairy stories. Rodin, the French sculptor, saw one of the toys at a meeting with Russian artists in 1910 and commented, ‘People who created this toy are great people’.

The carvers of Bogorodskoye continue to make animated toys using the same humorous ideas to create a fantasy world of toys. Many of the designs, as seen in Mikhail’s work, centre on the figure of a bear. Throughout Russian history, trained bears appeared at festivals and fairs performing simple tricks – dancing, riding a bike, playing an accordion, chopping wood. The people of Russia have always loved this animal, and the Bogorodskoye craftsmen have used its image as a symbol of kind-heartedness, simplicity and friendliness, the way the bear is represented in most Russian fairy stories.

In Bogorodskoye, generations of Russian craftsmen have been historically linked with one another through their craft, enriched and inspired like Mikhail Dvornikov by those past carvers and ensuring that the tradition will be passed on to their own children and grandchildren.