There is such a profession: a puppeteer. Since one person wanted to tell everyone else something intimate about himself and about them, this ancient specialty has appeared.

A long time ago, when there were no books, no TV, no movies, and music was consumed as a rare delicacy in specially designated places, dolls were born. Perhaps it was so in the beginning. To entertain the children, the hostess lit a candle in the evening and began to move her fingers near it, and funny silhouettes of rabbits, funny people and dogs appeared on the wall. Then they began to make the likeness of various animals and people from rags, leather and wood. This is how the doll came into existence and how the game originated.

Those roles that people could not afford, dolls often took on. People made puppets-gods for ritual processions and actions, dramatization of divine events. Because the actors, for various reasons, were afraid to take on the role of gods in such “performances”. Even the name "puppet" came from the doll depicting the Virgin Mary. A puppet can do more than an actor, although just by its very essence a puppeteer is an actor of the broadest profile. With the help of his puppet characters, the master puppeteer has a unique ability to speak allegorically about what one cannot say directly, what is called “on the forehead”.

When the word “doll” is mentioned to an ordinary person, the time when we all played the same game - childhood, played both adults and dolls, immediately comes to mind. But it's not so simple. Because there are dolls that are not always made for children, not even for them at all - but because it is impossible without dolls. Such dolls are created by artists.

Katerina Petrik's dolls burst into our everyday life as if a window was opened in a stuffy room. At the exhibition "Christmas Dreams" they brightened the dull winter days with a charge of impression, an explosion of color awakened feelings that lie at the heights of human souls. After all, what is impressionism? This is a record of beautiful accidents, the dynamics of moods: calmness, sun, summer, winter, rain and thunderstorms. So it turns out that these dolls are not objects, but impressions.

Katerina Petryk is a talented Kyiv artist. She graduated from the theatrical and decorative department of the Academy of Arts of Ukraine, studied at the Italian Academy of Arts and the Moscow School of Puppet Design, worked on the creation of collections jewelry. She has been creating and exhibiting her author's dolls for only a few years, but her unique dolls are already in private collections in Ukraine, the USA, France, Italy and Canada.

You can, of course, be curious and find out that the dolls are made of porcelain - the thinnest material, for which the whole world once went crazy, it was more expensive than gold. Katya's dolls are created using cernit - low-temperature porcelain, similar to skin, their eyes are the rarest Austrian crystal, cilia - a special delicate silk. Dresses are a separate topic altogether, they are made from antique, as they say, "older" fabrics, and this makes the dolls even more unique. But I would like to talk not about this, but about the fact that Katerina Petrik's dolls are not quite dolls in the usual sense of the word. I want to talk to them, I want to call them "creatures", a very strong spirituality comes from them. They are rather elves or veela, magical creatures that give us humans the opportunity to have a deeper and more trusting conversation. A conversation with a house elf can be ironic, compassionate, or hilarious, but in any case it is not just a conversation with an inanimate object or symbol. Each such doll helps to find new, still undiscovered layers in this conversation.

For Katerina, a doll is an opportunity to talk with people through her works about something secret, hidden, which cannot always be expressed in words - even when you are not around, there is no your real presence. This gives the artist a certain freedom. The word - it obliges, and visual art speaks its own language and gives a unique opportunity to each person to understand it in his own way. For example, since Vivaldi wrote his Four Seasons, many people see and perceive nature through this music. And Katya Petrik created images of the seasons with the help of dolls. Moreover, they are states, and not, say, a portrait resemblance to someone. After all, author's dolls are different: portrait, caricature, copying children with all their folds - in a word, any. For the artist, it is not the design details that are important, the image is important. And the image is a state.

Katerina can make a doll-sadness or a doll-joy, the main thing is to feel this state. Then it is visualized and breathed into the doll. It is possible to express the state with color in painting, it is also easy for her. But her doll differs precisely in that it expresses the state of the author on this moment. If in winter Katerina unbearably wants greenery, she can make a green grass doll. Dolls by the seasons are precisely the states of those seasons, no more and no less. The nostalgic state can also be expressed like this: the summer is passing by, and Katya has a presentiment that she will miss him in the winter. Then she makes her summer doll, just as rose petal jam is preserved for the winter. So into the doll: collect everything, all the smells and colors, all the blooms and buzz - and summer remains. You can admire these flowers, this scale and palette in winter, and your summer delights come to life. With the help of such a doll, you can stop the moment, the artist says, and this is a great pleasure.

And Katya admits that for her personally puppetry was a kind of salvation. Each person is hypnotized by the environment, the system broadcasts its stamps on him: business, career - the usual formula by which most people now live. Katerina did not want to become a part of this matrix system, and in order not to dissolve, not to get this program into her brain, she had to close herself and do something of her own. Stop for a second, listen to what's inside you. Like any artist who paints pictures not only for someone else, but also for herself, she makes these dolls because she cannot do otherwise. This is, as it were, her personal duty to the matrix, her salvation and her protective wall.

Interestingly, many puppet theaters, from Italian to Japanese, did not have more influence on Katerina than music, painting, fashion, architecture and other arts. She does not pay special attention to puppet theaters, and her puppets have nothing to do with them. However, as it turned out, the Venetian carnival, the commedia dell'arte costume performance, and Italian art in general, had some influence on her.

You can deny the need for romance in adulthood, but one cannot deny such a serious component of life as a game. It sounds strange, but psychotherapists have long known that people who underperform in childhood can have psychological problems. That is, childhood is given to a person to play. Adults, tired and twitchy, also have access to a reality called a game. When Katya Petrik makes dolls, she forgets about everything, plunging into a state of creativity. Then people come and say that the doll, it turns out, is telling them something of its own, it seems to them that it is going somewhere, and also, they say, it folded its hands like that, because it is shy. And the artist says that she did not expect anything like that ... And so they tell whole stories about Katya's dolls. As if her "Angel" doll has a beneficial effect on the aura of the family, and the "Night" doll patronizes good dreams. Dolls, despite their static nature, come to life in people's fantasies. Spectators enliven them with their impression - and these are adults, absolutely serious people. Dolls provoke a game of imagination.

In a modern house, the doll becomes a fashionable and very prestigious interior detail, like a painting or sculpture. However, to fit into the interior, it must match obligatory condition– to be a work of art, and not an object of cheap mass abundance. This is the original doll. Sometimes one such doll in the house becomes a collection option, because it is created by a professional artist, in a single copy. The author from beginning to end makes the doll with his own hands, not trusting anyone even minor details. He dresses it himself, looking for antique fabrics, lace, jewelry in the markets and auctions. The process of the birth of such a doll takes a long time, and the finished haute couture doll costs a lot. Yes, it's expensive, but it's top notch!

It is no coincidence that all over the world people of different levels of wealth acquire dolls no less willingly than paintings and old coins, because an author's doll becomes a kind of capital investment and its value increases over time. Very large collections of dolls were collected, for example, by Hollywood stars Demi Moore and Grace Kelly. Princess Diana also collected dolls. The most outstanding collection in the world is considered to be the collection of the famous Parisian gallery owner Dina Verny, her collection is fifty years old, it contains many rare and expensive dolls.

Each collector keeps them in their own way. But one thing is clear: the doll makes the house unique, unlike any other. Like any thing handmade, it carries a powerful energy charge, creating a special aura in the house. And you need certain knowledge, intuition and good taste to settle such a doll in your home. There is a feeling of a completely living being in the house. Because they, as very real living creatures, occupy some space, including emotional space. When the dolls "leave" for exhibitions, when Katerina does not see them for a long time, she admits that she misses the hypnosis of their looks.

The modern author's doll, as it is seen by us, the audience, often appeals to compassion, seeks to evoke sympathy for people, sympathy for their spiritual impulses and respect for their feelings. As paradoxical as it sounds, the impression dolls created by Katya's fantasy and emotional excess turn out to be able to breathe a little more warmth into us humans. You look at the "Ukrainian Madonna": a dreamy look somewhere in the sky and inside yourself, protruding in a childish way, insanely touching pink ears, a pregnant belly and inside his baby. Her Madonna is almost a girl. And that's why these defenseless twigs, huge surprised eyes touch the soul even more.

The dress is amazing in color and details of embroidery. Very graceful, delicate. Earthly and unearthly. It's hard to believe that she's a doll. Maybe an elf? Choose a person and talk to him...

In the photo: "Ukrainian Madonna", "Angel", "Apple Spas".

The text was written in 2004 for the Kyiv magazine "Natalie" and then published.

The choice of a doll must be approached especially responsibly, because with the help of the game girls not only develop, but also form important social roles and skills.

Dolls up to a year

For such early age child psychologists advise buying dolls made of soft, high-quality material. Little children know the world not so much with visual as with tactile contact, so that the baby likes to touch the doll, it must be pleasant to the touch. In addition, the toy should have a kind and bright face with expressive eyes and a smiling mouth. When a child is still very small, he needs a doll on which it would be convenient to study and show arms, legs, eyes, mouth, nose, ears. Such a doll will be useful for girls, as it will serve as a replacement for a person not only for playing, but also for learning. So that the child does not injure himself during the game, the forms of the purchased doll must be rounded. It is also very important that the toy does not include small and sharp parts that the baby could accidentally swallow or injure herself during the game.

Dolls from one to three years old

Usually up to three years the girl is missing one doll, reminiscent of her own age. During this period, the girl's preferences differ in that the child is no longer interested in simply squeezing the doll in his hands, biting or shaking. At this age, babies are attracted to fuss with clothes. Since little ladies love to dress up their dolls, a toy with some easy-to-remove items should appear in the toy arsenal. Since undressing the doll is much easier - with a concentrated snort, the young stylist will cope with the task on her own - but to dress the toy, the child is unlikely to manage without the help of adults. Doll outfits that do not contain buttons, zippers and additional details will help simplify the task.

Dolls 3 to 4 years old

Experts say that at this age, babies begin to realize their gender and imitate the behavior of their mothers. Babies begin to form the makings of a maternal instinct, so, as a rule, they treat the doll like a baby.

The girl takes pleasure in taking care of her doll, feeding, changing clothes, taking her for a walk, telling stories and putting her to bed. Based on this, it will be timely to purchase a baby doll that imitates the actions of a newborn: cries, eats, drinks and sleeps. Also, in addition to the toy, it does not hurt to purchase a set of clothes, a stroller, a bottle and other necessary attributes.

When choosing a toy, take care of its size. If the doll is too big, it will be inconvenient for the baby to mess around with it. Too small a toy will simply not be interesting. It is desirable that the size of the baby doll approximately corresponds to the size of a newborn baby. It is also important that the toy is simple and comfortable, made of quality material.

Dolls from five to seven years old

When the girl grows up, the doll has a new mission - the doll becomes a friend. Since at this age girls have ideas about style, beauty and fashion, the appearance of the toy begins to play an important role. When choosing a doll, you should pay attention to her face, hair length, changeable wardrobe. In addition to the doll itself, the girl may need the attached attributes, for example: a dollhouse, a car for a doll, a cosmetic set, and others. It’s quite difficult to sort out today’s variety of toys on your own, so it’s advisable to ask the girl in advance what exactly she would like to receive as a gift, or even better go shopping together so that the baby chooses the toy that she likes on her own. In turn, you should pay attention to the quality, as well as the appropriateness of the proposed purchase.

Sergey Vasilenkov for the Women's magazine "Charm"

A reborn doll differs from a living baby in only one thing - absolute immobility. She does not move, does not breathe and does not blink, but in everything else - in weight, height, smoothness of the skin, the gleam of her eyes - is indistinguishable from a real child. These dolls were invented for children - just as another entertaining toy to entertain the little ones. However, as it turned out, reborns are completely unsuitable for this purpose.

“Children don’t like such toys,” says psychotherapist Varvara Sidorova. – After all, it is impossible to play with them: to perform the required number of actions and manipulations, to fantasize, to invent. Naturalism and resemblance to a living child rather attract the attention of adults.

Reborns with their exaggerated naturalism, so similar to a living, but strangely and eeriely motionless baby, cause many to be dumbfounded and want to turn away. But there are people - and there are many of them - who value reborns precisely for their extreme resemblance to newborns and are ready to pay a lot of money for a doll. “People acquire them in an effort to satisfy their desires. Some people want to nurse a child and take care of him, but for some reason they do not dare to have a living baby, while others themselves need warmth and care - and do with the doll what they would like to be done with them: they wrap, cradle, swing on the handles, babysit ... ”- says Varvara Sidorova.

Security and Predictability

Women play with reborns with pleasure, dress them up in nice clothes, feed, cradle and ride in a stroller. They adore these "children", who - oh, a miracle! - they don’t cry and don’t make you get up at night ... It turns out comfortable, pleasant and safe way almost to be a mother. “It is really very attractive,” says Varvara Sidorova. - You can play with the doll and put it in the box. And living children require attention, responsibility, absorb resources, time and effort. Besides, children are forever. And reborns will never grow up, never change, never leave their mistress. Everything is safe and predictable. They will not say hurtful words, they will not hurt. There is no need to fear for them, there is nothing to expect from them. And in no situation can you feel like a bad mother.

On the other hand, why shouldn't women play with other dolls, also cute and naturalistic, but not with babies? “In any games, there is an imitation of life and the training of certain experiences,” says Varvara Sidorova. - Playing with a reborn baby, a woman receives in a homeopathic dose everything that she would receive from a real baby. She can gladly afford to be gentle and caring. In addition, a baby is touching tenderness, defenselessness, bows, lace, beauty ... Therefore, caring for a baby always evokes pleasant emotions - tenderness, admiration. Receiving these experiences in a microdose, a woman makes up for some kind of internal deficit.

The entourage of such a game and the ability to create also has its own charm. A woman can create different babies with different characters, invent destinies and families for them. This occupation becomes something like writing stories or fairy tales, only not words are used, but material objects.

Reborn can also be purchased by a woman who has not yet become a mother, but thinks a lot about it and “trying on” future motherhood. While playing, she will learn the skills of practical care and get used to the role of a mother. By the way, as a "simulator" reborns are used in groups preparing pregnant women for the birth of a baby.

More than a game?

What if the game gets delayed? “People with emotional deficits need such a game, which can be replenished by taking care of the doll,” explains Varvara Sidorova. - If a we are talking about reborns, then most often it is a lack of care, tenderness, security, tender admiration. Sometimes it's a need to be respected and recognized as important as a caring mother."

In this case, reborns can reduce the pressure of an unfulfilled need, but cannot fully satisfy it. At the same time, very often we are talking about people who have experienced trauma in close relationships, often in early childhood, and for some reason this injury was not healed. “Dolls in this case “anesthetize” deep despair, so familiar that the person himself no longer notices it. He just feels that after playing with the doll it becomes better, more pleasant, ”says the psychotherapist.

That is why it is simply cruel to demand from a person that he immediately stop playing with an artificial reborn baby. How to take medicine from a patient - or chalk from a person who lacks calcium. It shocks us, it is strange and embarrassing for us to watch these desperate attempts to make up for the lack, but the person receives relief from this. “Even if a person does not realize the depth of what is happening to him, he should not be deprived of the opportunity to play. From this, he will only become more unhappy, - the psychotherapist notes. “It’s better, without canceling the“ painkiller ”, to turn to a specialist in order to truly heal that spiritual wound that has remained inflamed and hurts.”

Imagine a woman pushing a baby stroller through the park. After all, she also asserts herself as a mother, reaps the fruits of the child's attitude towards her as a mother, and this is exactly what she needs. What if she could get all the same, but in a different form? Most likely, over time, the passion for reborns will pass, and the woman will move into another category - storytellers or expectant mother ready for a new stage of life.

Slavic hand-made amulet dolls have always played a significant role in the lives of people in Russia. In addition to their main purpose - to protect and protect, children played with dolls, they decorated the decoration of the house. Our ancestors were sure that amulet dolls have an impact on the life, health, fate and well-being of people. Therefore, dolls were made as symbols of the rite or the keeper of the hearth, they were often presented as gifts. These dolls were made from various materials, for example, from cloth, leather, clay or straw.

In order to more clearly show what kind of amulets were made for a specific occasion, we will give a few examples.

For holidays associated, for example, with the change of seasons or harvesting, appropriate ritual pupae were made. Each had its own role and its own fate - some were burned, others were kept - stuffed with cereals and placed in the house to attract prosperity.

Lovebird dolls were made for the wedding for the newlyweds, which symbolized the integrity of the family.

If there were no children in the family, but the spouses really wanted to become parents, then they made a doll-amulet for pregnancy - “Moskovka”. It was believed that it symbolizes the spirit of motherhood and family unity.

Even for the speedy birth of a child, women made a “pregnant” doll for themselves. Its peculiarity is that it is an ordinary doll, in the hem of which the doll "Plenashka" is hidden. It was also believed that this amulet removes damage, the evil eye and other troubles from the newborn.

Dolls "Chappies"

Charms "Bunnies" were made for children. They helped the kids not get bored if they had to be left alone.

The doll "Kubyshka" served as a talisman for health. She had to sit on a bag with medicinal herbs. And if someone was sick, it was necessary to go with the doll around the house, rubbing this bag with your fingers, and then put the doll in bed with the sick person in order to expel the spirit of the disease.

For prosperity, they made the Krupenichka doll and the Rich Man doll.

So that the house would not be left without an owner when he left for a long time, a protective doll was necessarily planted in its place.

You can watch the video from the First Museum Slavic Mythology, which tells about the manufacture of an amulet doll.

There are many other amulet dolls. We get to know each of them in more detail in the article Slavic dolls-amulets made of fabric: their meaning and how to make them with your own hands

Rules for creating protective pupae

And in our time, protective dolls are made. But before you make amulets with your own hands, check out some significant rules!

1. Calm down, concentrate, read a prayer or slander

First, calm down, retire and concentrate on what you will be doing. You must have exclusively good mood and calm state. Turn on some relaxing music or sing a good song yourself. You can also read a prayer, a conspiracy, or just speak out loud for whom and why you are going to make this doll.

For example, when making a Six-handed doll, you can say:
“I make you in order to succeed in all matters and do them well. I turn this handle so that there will always be order, peace and comfort in my house. I turn this handle so that my husband is always well-groomed, fit and happy with everything ... etc. ”

You can twist the head of the doll with your fingers and say:
"Light head, clean, filled with goodness, love."

When breastfeeding a doll, think about happy motherhood so that the family does not need anything.

In general, you can pronounce any text of the slander, the main thing is that it leads to the desired result.

2. Only women can make amulets

During the manufacture of amulets, there should not be men in the room, that is, “male energy”. And if, nevertheless, the presence of boy children is inevitable, then first keep them busy with your own affairs, and then start working with the doll. Boys should not stand nearby and see the process of work!

3. Puppets are made on their knees

Make a charm doll on your knees or, as they said before, “in the hem”, that is, in your personal space. The table is a common place and only the fabric and tools used in the work can be placed on it.

4. Amulets are made from natural materials

To create dolls, take only natural fabrics, such as cotton, linen or wool. Do not use knitwear! Fabrics should not have edges or old seams. If you are making a doll for a gift, use new fabric or fabric from old clothes the one to whom you will make the doll. For yourself, take fabric from things that were used by your family.

Mandatory rule: the face of the doll should be white so that through it no one could transfer evil thoughts to the owner of the amulet. Besides, White color symbolizes the purity of thoughts.

5. Do not use a needle and scissors in work

When making shore dolls, do not use needles, knives, glue and scissors. In the old days they said that the doll should be “not cut, not chopped” so as not to harm the health of the one who is being amulet.

Tear the fabric with your hands. If you are making from thick fabric, then first cut the edge of the fabric, and then tear it by hand. Do all the manipulations with the knife and scissors before starting work with the doll. Tie the body for the doll, do not sew.

The only exception is the bag for the Krupenichki-Zernovushki doll, which is sewn on the side.

Moreover, clothes for dolls also need to be made without using a needle. And you can decorate it with lace, embroidery and braid.

Break the threads with your hands or bite with your teeth.

6. Sacred number - 3

When you tie the strings, tie them 3 times. The number 3 has always been magical for the Slavs and they believed that in addition to reliability, 3 knots give reliability to slander, and also serve as protection against any negativity.

7. The doll must be neat and stuffed tightly.

Remember that the amulet doll should be neat and dense. The filler in all parts of the doll's body must be laid in an orderly manner. Make the body especially strong and dense. Roll a twisted doll, for example, with your palm on your knees until it becomes tight.

If something doesn’t work out, the doll is disheveled or falling apart, it’s better to redo it all over again. Do not leave loose threads, divergent ends and disheveled armpits. Be sure to inspect the doll after finishing each detail in order to immediately correct, fasten the thread, and tuck the excess inside. The more accurate the doll, the more protected it is from negative external influences.

If suddenly during the work the thread breaks accidentally or it is not possible to straighten the fold in any way, say: “Misfortune will come to the doll, and I (or the name of the one to whom the amulet is being made) will bypass.”

8. When creating a talisman, a good message is important

In the process of work, put bright images into the amulet doll - this is much more important than the manufacturing technique. Therefore, it is very important to make amulets only to those to whom you sincerely wish good, to those whom you love! And if you need to make a charm for someone else, then first imbue the image of this person, wish him well, and only then proceed to manufacture.