Kotok Playthings
We design wooden toys in St-Petersburg and then entrust the realization of our ideas
to the family artel of craftsmen: wood turners and painters from a small settlement in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Russia. There the toy-craftsmen industry has been well-known since the XIX century and has become a tradition.
To work with talented artisans and support their distinct traditional craft, especially during current times of a global overproduction is a great joy for us.
Our goal is to create high-quality toys with a history that people of all ages will treasure and love.
↑ Voznesenskoye is a small village in the Nizhny Novgorod region with a population of six thousand people and with a Matryoshka doll on the district’s coat of arms: this is a birthplace of our toys. In the XIX century, The Polkhov-Maidan painting style, that is recognizable for its bright decorative floral motifs, appeared in these places. The local toy factory still produces beautiful wooden souvenirs of folk craft, like nesting dolls, easter eggs
and mushroom-shaped money boxes.
TOMMELISE & WHITE DAISY variable stacking toys
NISSE, AOOKA & COCKEREL tinkling roly poly toys
WHITE OWL tinkling roly poly toy
WHITE DAISY variable stacking toy
BOGGART nesting doll with a propeller
KOTIK storage box
SPIN KIN a set of spinning tops
BARYNYA storage box
All of our toys are handcrafted. Each figurine is different from others, because it's painted by hand. In production are used only water-based paint and varnish, suitable for children’s use. All figurines are packed ecologically: in cardboards tubes or paper and linen bags, full of paper filler for protection.
On web we are www.kotok.toys
Images from KOTOK ЛАРЕЦ from left to right: Wooden dolls, Krásná Jizba, Czechoslovakia, 1940s; Folk art of the Ueda farmers/ Japan, beginning of the 20th century; Puppets for the play “König Hirsch” designed by Sophie Taeuber-Arp for the Schweizerisches Marionettentheater (Swiss Puppet Theater), 1918.
ЛАРЕЦ (Treasury) is a place where we collect our inspiration and show images of wooden toys of different times and cultures: whether they were created by craftsmen, modernist designers or were mass-produced by large toy factories. Here we're sharing our passion for decorative arts and playful design.
That’s how our toy project turned into a little study: the section is constantly updated on our instagram: if you like toys as much as we do (and we consider some of them as design masterpieces) – please, follow the updates #kotok_treasury.
KOTOK Playthings is a finalist of All-Russian Competition-Biennale of Object Design «Invented and Made in Russia» and a winner in the CRAFTS: Interior Decor nomination.
We ship from Saint-Petersburg, Russia (with ♡).
Toy design & illustration
Xusha Shishkova
graphic Design & art direction
Artem Strizhkov
PHOTO
Oleg Savunov
