In 1890, painter Sergei Malyutin and wood-turner Vasily Zvyozdochkin created the first matryoshka at Savva Mamontov's Abramtsevo workshop — an eight-doll set depicting a peasant girl named Matryona holding a black rooster. It won a bronze medal at the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition and became Russia's most recognizable folk object.

This design system channels the material truth of that original set: warm birch-wood surfaces, hand-painted russet and cream, Cyrillic letterforms from Russian Revival printing, and the egg-oval silhouette that nests seven smaller selves inside one.