From Amerika with Love

Anyone can give a sweater or a toaster for Christmas. Or, for that matter, a matryoshka (nesting doll) or palekh lacquer box. But a gold-plated spoon from a Kremlin vault? Or a hand-carved boyar figurine? Or Russian choral music? Or a new, digitally restored copy of Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible? Well, here the task gets a bit more challenging.

Enter the Practical Traveler. This month we offer up a series of unique Russian gift ideas – all of them available from US retailers or catalogers.

Time was, matryoshkis and lacquer boxes were all the rage. When travel to Russia was more unusual, US shops and dealers offering these items made a killing buying up high quality productions in Russia for a song, then reselling them in the US for a small fortune.

But in the last five years, the volume of travel to Russia has exploded and lacquered art objects have been pouring out of Russia to the US. With the usual side effects.

“When you are buying lacquer boxes or matryoshki in the US, you need to be careful of factory-made knock-offs from Taiwan,” warns Joan Wheeler, owner of Russian Gallery in Marblehead, MA. “You have to look for signatures on the bottom in Russian, and you should only buy from shops specializing in Russian imports.”

This latter is less difficult than it used to be. Nearly every major US city now has at least one major shop dealing exclusively in Russian imports. From Little Russia in Boston, to A La Vie Russe in New York, to Marina’s in Chicago and Russian Treasure in San Francisco, America is awash in Russian goods (see listings on page 30). And lacquered art is just the beginning.

“For a while there was great interest in lacquered boxes and matryoshka nesting dolls, but there is much less interest now,” noted Zhanna Brodetsky, of Russian Souvenirs in California. What seems to be the next hot item? “Amber,” Brodetsky says without hesitation, “and Faberge eggs,” due to the interest sparked by the traveling Faberge in America exhibit (see Russian Life, May, 1996).

And yet even amber can be old hat for people familiar with Russian gifts. If you are looking for something truly unique, you need to dig still deeper.

Russian Gallery in Marblehead is a good place to start. It features a fine assortment of Faberge-type items, matryoshkis, etc. But Wheeler also strives to stock unique, hand-crafted works of art, including one-of-a-kind Dubrovna dolls, carved boyar figurines, Gzhel and Yaroslavl ceramics, pen and ink drawings, etchings and prints.

Maison Russe, in Lisle, IL, offers blown crystal Russian easter eggs, icon prints and an unusual, limited production set of nesting dolls bearing the portraits of the last Russian family.

In New York, A La Vielle Russe offers unique collectibles and antiques from the tsarist era. Meanwhile, the lesser-known The Russia House in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel offers one of the finest selections of lacquer boxes and nesting dolls we have seen anywhere in the US.

Boston’s Little Russia offers a very wide selection of Russian-made jewelry, in addition to wooden toys, military items, Gzhel and matroshki.

In San Francisco, Russian Treasure and Babushka offer amber, hand-painted items and Faberge replicas. At the Turov Gallery, you can buy unique ceramics with Russian designs by Russian artists living in San Francisco.

Many other shops exist in other cities (certainly not all can be listed). And they can be hard to find. Indeed, the research for this article turned up nearly a hundred “suspect” gift shops across the country. But over half seem to have relocated or disappeared. Still, if none of the stores listed in this article are near you, most will ship anywhere in the US.

Russia by Mail

Which brings us to mail order. A number of specialty mail order companies offer some unique Russian gift ideas – available from the convenience of your easy chair.

Sovietski Collection offers an excellent selection of limited-edition and collectors’ items, with everything from WWII Russian aviator goggles to border guard binoculars to silver and gold-plated Kremlin flatware to silver shot glasses. And, says President Mitch Siegler, “next year we are going to have Russian space memorabilia, including suits, pilot helmets and more.”

If music is what you are looking for, Musica Russica offers a collection of Russian choral music that is beyond compare. The newly-released Rachmaninov Liturgy on offer would make for great holiday mood music.

For more contemporary music, try  Russian Supply and MBM Inc. For videos of Russian films, turn to the impressive collections of Facets Video.

For lacquer boxes by mail, Russian Collection in New Hampshire is the place to start. Russian Rennaissance, also of New Hampshire, offers a selection of hand embroidered silk, wool and linen clothing, accessories and items for the home.

If it’s books you are after, Access Russia, from the publishers of Russian Life, offers over 300 books, maps, periodicals and software related to Russia, from history to language to reference and business.

Contact Focus Publishing for original language editions of Russian classics. For more contemporary literature in Russian, try Club Knizhnik, N&N Publishers or Liberty Publishers. And, for the most complete holdings of Russian language books, call Kamkin Books.

In short, there can be no better way to pass on your interest in things Russian than to give a unique Russian gift this holiday season (say, for example a subscription to Russian Life...).  And, what is more, if you follow the Practical Traveler’s lead, you can give great value.

“Where else,” noted Sovietski Collection’s Siegler, “can you get a work of art like a lacquer box, say, that someone has spent three months creating, at a retail price that is a real value? Russia is one of the last places on earth where you can get old-fashioned quality at incredible prices.”