Filimonovo toy
Clay whistles with elongated proportions, painted with stripes, fir-tree sprigs and circles in yellow, red and green. The craft took shape in the village of Filimonovo in the Odoyevsky District of the Tula Region.
According to legend, the village of Filimonovo is named after the potter Filimon, who found good clay here. The exact date when the craft began is unknown; by some accounts it is several centuries old.
In potters’ families the adults made the tableware, while girls and their grandmothers modelled and painted toy whistles from leftover clay. The money from selling the whistles was put aside for the girls’ dowries.
The main characters are ladies, horsemen, cows, bears and cockerels. The figures have long necks and stylised details, and the painting is made up of simple symbolic elements.
After the revolution the craft almost died out, but a few craftswomen kept the skill alive and in the 1960s passed it on to art historians and young artists. By the 1980s the Filimonovo toy had been revived; today several families in Odoyev make it.
Photographs
Filimonovo toy 
Filimonovo toy 
Filimonovo toy