Russian nesting dolls were created in the 1890 in Moscow. Sava Mamontov owned the Abramtsevo estate. This estate housed the Children's Workshop where the nesting dolls were dreamed up by Mamontov and then painted by local artists. Mamontov was both an industrialist and patron of the arts. His plan was to create a new form of Russian art that would take the art world by storm.
The belief is that the nesting dolls were given the name Matryoshka due to the Latin root "mater" which means mother. The dolls always featured a chubby woman and smaller replicas of this woman were tucked neatly inside.