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.