My collection of old Christmas tree decorations. Detective Carrot and the district council with candies: the most expensive Christmas tree decorations in the history of Russia

With age, sometimes an irresistible desire arises to remember your childhood, to feel some nostalgia for the times of the USSR. For some reason, the New Year in the Soviet style most reminds those over thirty of times that, despite the shortages, you remember with rapture in your heart, considering them the best.

Nowadays there is a growing tendency to celebrate the New Year in the style of the USSR. It’s no longer surprising to see a Christmas tree decorated according to the American model in three colors. More and more I want to decorate the Christmas tree with old Soviet toys. And be sure to put cotton wool simulating snow and tangerines under it.

Variety of Christmas tree decorations

Often the Christmas tree in Soviet families was decorated with an abundance of toys and decorations. Particularly noteworthy are the clothespin toys, which are very convenient to attach to the middle of a Christmas tree branch. They were presented in all sorts of forms: Santa Claus, Snowman, Snow Maiden, candle, matryoshka.

The balls, as now, were of different sizes, but the unique highlight was in the balls with round hollows, into which the light of the garlands fell, creating a fabulous illumination throughout the Christmas tree. There were also phosphor patterned balls that glowed in the dark.

Since the New Year begins at midnight, toys in the form of watches were produced. They were given a central place on the tree. Often, such Soviet Christmas tree decorations were hung at the very top, just below the top of the head, which was certainly decorated with a red star - the main Soviet symbol.

Christmas decorations of those times were also represented by decorations made from large glass beads and beads. They were usually hung on the lower or middle branches. Old Soviet toys, especially pre-war ones, are carefully stored and passed on from grandmothers to grandchildren.

From icicles, houses, clocks, animals, balls, stars, a unique design was made.

Was it raining?

There was no such fluffy and voluminous rain as there is now during Soviet socialism. The Christmas tree was decorated with vertical rain and beads. A little later, horizontal rain appeared, but it was not thick and voluminous. Some voids on the tree were filled with garlands and candies.

For a few days, you can feel the atmosphere of the Soviet Union with the help of a Christmas tree decorated in retro style. Unique Soviet-era Christmas tree decorations, decorations and tinsel should be looked for in the bins of our grandmothers or purchased at city flea markets. By the way, auctions and online stores are being created online for the purchase, sale and exchange of Christmas tree decorations from the USSR era. Some even collect such toys, many of which are already considered antiques.

All that remains is to decorate the Christmas tree with old Soviet toys, turn on the Irony of Fate and for a second remember your childhood.

Over the past 20 years, he has been collecting and restoring old children's toys, with a special love for Christmas tree decorations. His extensive collection contains about three thousand old New Year's toys, which found their home in a small room in the Palace of Pioneers on Sparrow Hills. Among the rare exhibits of Sergei Romanov are toys made from the 1830s–1840s until the collapse of the USSR, as well as papier-mâché toys from the 50s. We invite you to plunge into the atmosphere of magic and look at ancient Christmas tree decorations from the past.

Angel, early 20th century

Boat. Late 19th - early 20th centuries

Christmas grandfather. Glass. Late 19th - early 20th centuries

Boy skiing, glass balls. Late 19th - early 20th centuries

Children on a sled. Cotton toys with porcelain faces. Late 19th - early 20th centuries

Christmas grandfather. Cotton toy, chromolithography. Late 19th - early 20th centuries

Star. Mounted toy. Glass. Late 19th - early 20th centuries

Christmas grandfather. Chromolithograph. Late 19th - early 20th centuries

Ball in honor of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution. Glass. 1937

Letter from Santa Claus. New Year card. Mid-20th century

Father Frost. Cotton toy 1930-1940

Snow Maiden. Cotton toy. 1930-1950

Locomotive. Embossed cardboard. 1930-1940

Airships. Glass. 1930-1940

Watch. Glass. 1950-1960

Hare with a drum. Glass. 1950-1970

Clown with a pipe. Glass. 1950-1970

Glass toys 1960-1980

Lady with a snowball. Porcelain doll. Late XIX - beginning

New Year tree with cotton toys. Second half of the 1930s

Collector Sergei Romanov: “There are very rare items - the Hold-Grab dog and the Leek”

New Year is a holiday outside of time and politics. It would seem that. But everything that has happened in our country over the past hundred years is reflected in the Christmas tree decoration. Sergei Romanov, one of the most famous collectors of Christmas tree decorations in Russia, told us about the most unique specimens.

Photo from personal archive

From golden angels, homemade nuts and beads made from candies to multi-colored “Glory to the USSR” balls, glass cosmonauts and workers with collective farmers...

“During the Civil War in the late 30s, there even appeared a ball on which the battle of our plane with the fascist one was depicted, and ours, of course, knocked out the enemy,” says Sergei Romanov, a toy historian and restoration artist. There are more than 3000 copies in his collection.

And if you add here other Soviet toys not related to the New Year holidays, you will get over 12 thousand. “But Christmas trees are a special topic!” - the collector emphasizes.

Photo from personal archive

Everyone remembers the joke about fake Christmas tree decorations. Beautiful, shiny. But they don’t make you happy - that’s all! In fact, before we rejoiced not in toys, but in our childhood. What do you think, Sergei Gennadievich, is this so?

There is a special love for Christmas tree decorations. In any house they are left over from grandparents, but they are taken out only once a year, so it turns out that this is also some kind of continuous connection between generations.

I was born in 70, from childhood I remember that there was Santa Claus and reindeer. An unforgettable miracle! When I became a little older, busy parents often sent me to sit with a neighbor; the boy needed to be occupied with something, and the neighbor, Aunt Olya, would take out from under the sofa a large suitcase with antique Christmas tree decorations. Summer, heat - and these magical toys from Aunt Olya's suitcase.

At home I shared my impressions with my parents, and suddenly they told me that we also have such beauty, grandma’s toys. “Why don’t we hang them on the Christmas tree?” - “But they’re already old...” Dad climbed onto the mezzanine - and for the first time I saw things that were completely different in their aesthetics...

Photo from personal archive

- So, it’s your neighbor’s “fault” that you became a toy collector?

If it weren't for Aunt Olya, there would probably be something else. Since childhood, I have been amazed by the world of old things and photographs from an old album covered in calico.

In the life of any little person, one day a wonderful discovery comes - when he suddenly finds out that mom, dad, and even grandparents were little too... “Here is your grandmother in the photo, she is 5 years old. And on the other she’s already 25.” How can this be? This is an amazing revelation! That there was a time for other children and other toys...

This is how my acquaintance with family history began. I tirelessly asked to show things from that distant era, to find them, and indeed my grandmother had not only Christmas decorations, but also ancient dolls, perfect beauties with papier-mâché bodies and fragile porcelain heads, and much more.

Photo from personal archive

- Is this how your collection began?

Rather, it was the first push. I was about fourteen years old when the kitten, who lived in our apartment at the time, knocked over the New Year tree... A lot of things broke. And then friends and relatives simply brought us their toys so that the holiday would still take place.

People close to me both then and now were not indifferent to my interest. But in high school, many did not understand my hobby, and I had to resist ridicule. The first copies of the collection were selected on the basis of “like it or not.” Of course, over time it grew into amateurism. I am actually forming a museum fund.

My collection is now of museum value. And at any moment it can become such a museum. Exhibitions are also held regularly. Right now, for example, in Kolomenskoye there is an exhibition “Another Childhood” - toys from the 20s to the 50s of the last century are displayed there.

Photo from personal archive

They are antiques. Anything older than half a century is an antique. That is, all toys made before 1965 are of interest to collectors. For some reason, decorations made of cotton wool are considered especially expensive and rare, and those made in Leningrad were not supplied to Moscow during the Soviet era, they only went to the regions; Ukrainian toys from the Claudian factory are also valued. The cost of especially rare specimens reaches 25–30 thousand rubles, sometimes higher.

It happens that several dozen collectors fight for a rare toy at once. Of course, there are serious people, and there are those who collect according to the “sandbox syndrome” principle - since my neighbor has a car, then I want the same one. Actually, nothing has changed - even though the children have grown up.

Photo from personal archive

- I want - that’s all?!

Of course, the market dictates its own laws. There are also truly unique things. In general, prices for toys rose sharply because of the American Kim Balashak, she specially came to the country in the mid-90s and simply bought everything she saw at the Izmailovo vernissage. The traders immediately saw through this.

In those years, there was also a famous flea market at the Tishinsky market. New Year's toys were a seasonal product, and their prices were quite affordable, then the first online auctions appeared - and the value of some lots skyrocketed.

Kim Balashak was really very keen on collecting our New Year's toys, but sometimes she simply did not know their history, our national mentality, balls with portraits of Lenin and Stalin could still be somehow identified, but the way she described some toys looks like an anecdote.

Photo from personal archive

So, Kim acquired a series consisting of several characters: a fox-football player, a hare-football player, a wolf-football player, a bear-football player... And I look and understand: this is a fairy tale about a bun!

Or Nekrasov’s “little man” was once called a mule driver. So foreigners are not always able to understand our Russian toys and their meaning. This is part of our culture.

- They say that around the same time the first fakes of Soviet Christmas tree decorations appeared.

Yes, these were toys primarily made of cotton wool. The manufacturing technology there is quite simple. It is almost impossible to fake glass! If only you repaint the existing balls to match the old designs.

Kim Balashak paid well for all kinds of things, so this type of fraud flourished. After Kim left, it became unprofitable to counterfeit such things - it was much more profitable to make your own remakes of old, sometimes even pre-revolutionary, copies.

So the toys from Tsarist times have survived? We are probably the only country in the world where the “Christmas tree” connection between generations was interrupted by wars and revolutions. There was no time for toys...

Few glass ones survived. But there were things that were different in technology. Firstly, from embossed cardboard, this is thick-walled cardboard, which was made in a special way, there were surprise toys - there, like in a pencil case, you could hide something of your own. There were cotton ones, made of papier-mâché. There were also dolls with porcelain heads... The tradition of glass Christmas tree decorations arose not so long ago - around the 60s of the 19th century.

Photo from personal archive

- And the Germans were the first to start making them?

The following legend has been preserved: in the city of Lausha, where the glass production was located, one poor glassblower had no money at all to buy gifts for his children. And, in order not to return home empty-handed, he blew out shaped toys, balls, pendants, they could be hung on the Christmas tree. Neighbors came to visit him for the holiday and were completely delighted with such beauty and began to place orders.

The poor glassblower became rich, and glass New Year's toys appeared in the world. The factory in Lauscha is still operating. Germans captured in the First World War taught Russian craftsmen how to make similar jewelry.

Usually, rich houses ordered toys from catalogs. And those who could not afford it hung treats on the tree - cookies, sweets, nuts in gold foil. But the “delicious” toys lost out because they were immediately eaten. Remember Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker”: children burst into the hall with a Christmas tree with laughter, instantly tear off all the branches, and immediately throw out the bare trunk. But I wanted a longer holiday, contemplating the Christmas tree, admiring it.

So in women's magazines, advice appeared on how to make long-lasting jewelry: weld a paste, take a wire, wrap it with cotton wool, sprinkle crushed mica on top - such “recipes” were published by all self-respecting women’s publications in those days. Although the traditions of edible toys persisted for quite a long time. Do you remember the story by Mikhail Zoshchenko, written in the 20s, about Lelya and Mitya, who ate a Christmas tree?

- But after the revolution, the Christmas tree suddenly suddenly turned out to be illegal. As a bourgeois relic and a class enemy.

Not right away. As we know, Lenin organized a Christmas tree for children in Sokolniki. But from about the year 27, the tree really fell out of favor, thematic products were not produced, and the celebration was not welcomed. The younger generation had to be brought up with completely different examples and ideals.

- How did the “repressed” toys survive?

They were hidden. After all, I still wanted a holiday. Few toys from that era have survived. My grandmother still has them - she was born in 1910. Grandmother got married in 1931, from 1936 Christmas trees were allowed again, Christmas was replaced by New Year, and since then grandmother bought new toys every year, put them in one box with the pre-revolutionary decoration of her childhood: heavy German balls that were hung close to the trunk, where the branches were thicker; very thin Lauschi stars, rustling like foil.

Many of my grandmother's jewelry are still alive. Several pieces, however, were broken; they don’t just sit there, but are in constant use.

I remember we had a completely unique Santa Claus in a hat, very carefully painted. And a bunch of grapes with a dragonfly on the side! Many people find something similar in their home and also give it to me, adding to the collection.

Photo from personal archive

In total, I now have more than three thousand toys, I’ve already lost counting them. From exhibition to exhibition, and there have been dozens of them, the assortment is updated. But you can't keep track of everything.

Many years ago, when I was just starting to exhibit, an accident occurred in one of the museums, I won’t say which one. Part of the collection was broken. The show had already ended, the exhibition had been dismantled, everything had been packed, the acceptance certificates had been signed, and suddenly they offered me help - to carry the boxes to the car. I didn’t agree to anything, but the lady employee insisted...

The road was slippery, the woman slipped, fell and broke two boxes. It was very disappointing, since among the “lost” toys there were many rare Leningrad ones, which you practically cannot find in Moscow.

- Were they insured?

At that time, no. This is the 90s. When you are young, you somehow don’t think about possible risks. I then restored many broken toys for decades.

And there are sets that cannot be bought for any money. Simply because there are negligible numbers of them. For example, they went on sale for a specific event in a certain year or were sold in certain cities.

Many collectors are chasing the series “The Adventures of Cipollino” by Gianni Rodari. There are very rare positions there - detective Carrot or dog Hold-Grab, Leek. These heroes were sold individually in the 50s, when Gianni Rodari was just translated into Russian, a cartoon appeared - and a real boom in book heroes began.

The set was released several times, its most expanded version being two-tier boxes containing about 20 fairy-tale characters. They were produced according to GOST.

- Wow!!!

Don’t think that the production of Christmas tree decorations was taken very seriously in those days. They were also part of the country’s ideology. Stalin returned the Christmas tree to the children. But at the same time, the concept of making them and celebrating them generally changed, politics intervened, and even the toys themselves became political. Soldiers, cosmonauts, balloons with the inscription “Glory to the Soviet people.”

After 1936, factories began to mass produce Chelyuskinites, Red Army soldiers, balloons with images of Lenin, Stalin, Marx and Engels, and even small bonbonniere boxes in the form of district councils, in which, like in the good old days, you could put candy and hang it on the Christmas tree.

Fairy tale heroes continued to be made even then, but at the same time, figures of children of all nationalities and representatives of working professions appeared. When they started making friends with us in the 50s, they started producing little Chinese. I already told you about toys about the war in Spain, and I also have a glass ball with a “happy” inscription “Happy 1941!”...

- Who decided what toys there should be? Who chose their topics?

In the Soviet Union there was an Institute of Toys, where a specially created expert commission worked. All toy projects had to go through her. The idea could be rejected for aesthetic or ideological reasons.

Sometimes the experts were late in making a decision, the toy was put into circulation, and later it turned out that it did not meet the party line, it happened that it did not meet sanitary standards - and then the whole series could be removed from production, and the author who took liberties could be punished. So there are also toys that have survived in extremely limited quantities.

Today the All-Russian Research Institute of Toys does not exist; it was destroyed in the 90s. Therefore, there is no longer a scientific approach to the production of toys. But still, even in “party” times, there were not and could not be completely identical toys. That is, everyone had some basic background and idea in common, and then everything depended on the hand of the master. The toys were painted by hand. But everything depended on who made them, on what was in his soul. Even the region of manufacture often mattered. Everywhere had its own traditions.

In Leningrad, let’s say, they approached the process more carefully, their toys came out in strict, deep shades, very restrained in color, laconic, regular and clear lines, which I personally really like, and they made everything a little more crooked, clumsy, but fun and warm. So I can easily distinguish toys from each other and find out the era in which they were made.

You know, my exhibition was once held on Poklonnaya Hill as part of the New Year’s Toy Festival. There, each tree represented a certain historical period in the USSR: the 30s, early 40s, wartime, 60s... And each era has its own soul. You can't confuse toys from one era with another.

- But for some reason you stopped at the “Brezhnev” era. There are almost no “Gorbachev” copies.

Something changed already in the 80s. The care and tenderness that previous jewelry had was gone. Perhaps due to the fact that production has become cheaper.

The craftsmen didn’t bother too much: they’ll plating gold on a glass ball, draw some kind of curlicue, and it’s done. It is possible that the changes taking place in our country at that time left their mark. No, the toys of those years are unique, but for their time, and for today's 25 year olds, they will undoubtedly evoke nostalgia someday. But I limited myself to the Soviet period. He is closer to me, more understandable, dearer.

Then I’m afraid to even ask how you feel about the numerous Chinese fakes that have filled all the Christmas tree markets today. They seem to be exact copies of even 19th-century rarities, beautiful, brilliant, but - as in the joke - they are not pleasing. By what criteria do you decorate your New Year tree - after all, no matter how hard you try, you can’t hang all 3000 toys on it?

And when and how. But I always try to maintain a single style: either it’s German Christmas or Sots Art, sometimes I hang exclusively toys from my childhood, the 70s of the twentieth century. The neighbors wonder every time: what could it be? They come and are usually surprised that they didn’t guess right again...

Many of us have somewhere on the mezzanine or in the closet a box with old Christmas tree decorations that our grandparents used. It is so? Usually we don’t even think about the fact that such toys can be truly valuable, not only because of the memories, but because they have now become collectible.

Many of us still have old Christmas tree decorations at home. The same ones that our grandparents used to decorate the Christmas tree for the New Year. Usually we take them out of the box and don’t even think about their value. This happened to 56-year-old Vladimir Schneider from Yekaterinburg.

The same ones that our grandparents used to decorate the Christmas tree for the New Year
BIG jackpot in a SMALL PANTRY
Vladimir is a retired Airborne Forces colonel. All my life I wandered around garrisons. And recently I decided to settle in my native Yekaterinburg. This is where he has his parents' apartment. The property has been empty for four years...
- When I moved, I started a major renovation. I started sorting out the deposits of old things. My mother was very thrifty - she didn’t allow anyone to throw anything away,” says Vladimir. - And my mother’s pantry was generally a place “with seven locks.” She didn’t let anyone in there, even just to see what was there.
On the dusty mezzanines, Vladimir found several cardboard boxes. They contained golden glass cones, Christmas tree balls with a lace pattern, figurines of snowmen, fairy-tale characters, carefully wrapped in paper... More than a hundred toys.

The same toys that our grandparents used to decorate the Christmas tree for the New Year
- At first I grabbed my head: “Where are there so many of them?” Not a single tree can stand it,” Vladimir laughs. - I decided to throw it away. Yes, it was a pity - after all, my mother had been collecting them for so many years. Give it to me, I think I'll sell it. I'll help you out a penny, no matter what. I went online to see how much this stuff could be sold for. And gasped! Some toys from the 50s sold for 50,000, while others sold for 100,000! It turns out that I found a whole “treasure”!
LOOK FOR BUNNY ON CLOTHESPENS
It turned out that at auctions collectors are ready to pay several thousand for rare Christmas tree decorations. For example, a hut on a clothespin is bought for 5,000 rubles apiece, but for an “Stargazer” from the 50s you can get up to 50,000 rubles...

Some toys from the 50s sold for 50,000, while others sold for 100,000!
- The first Christmas tree was decorated in 1937. Then they made cotton toys more often, for example, “Girl on a swing.” Her outfit is made of fabric, her face is made of papier-mâché and painted. This is a real “retro,” explains antiques expert Vyacheslav Srebny. – Antique experts estimate it at about 5,000 rubles. But on the Internet, collectors are ready to pay all 150,000 rubles for such a thing!
According to Vyacheslav, glass toys, which began to be made in the 50s, are especially popular. Moreover, products on clothespins are valued twice as much as on hanging ones.

Then they made cotton toys more often, for example, “Girl on a swing”
- These toys were painted by hand, you definitely won’t find two identical ones. For each of them you can earn 1500 rubles. Handmade toys have a price 10 times higher than the factory price, continues Vyacheslav. – Toy collections are especially valued. For example, the collection “Tales of the Fisherman and the Fish,” which was released in the year of the 150th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth. It is very difficult to collect them together; collectors hunt for them. I saw one toy being sold on the Internet for 22,000 rubles.
For clarity, Vyacheslav takes out a large Santa Claus from the box. It was made in the 50s. Srebny was lucky - he bought it from unknowing people for only 1,500 rubles. Now you can sell it for 8000.

It turned out that at auctions collectors are ready to pay several thousand for rare Christmas tree decorations
According to the expert, the cost of a toy is affected by its condition: chips can reduce its price by even 90 percent. A crack on a toy, even if it has been thoroughly glued, reduces the price by 70 percent. If the paint is worn off, then it will be minus 30, if it completely flies away, then it will be minus 50.
Determining the year of manufacture of a toy is not easy if it is not indicated on the product. But there are catalogs with the history of releases from manufacturing factories. For example, the guide catalog “Christmas tree decorations 1936-1970” with pictures, descriptions and the exact date of release.
The rarest toys today are those made from cotton wool. Behind them come glass, then paper and cardboard, and finally foam.

The children really liked the old New Year's toys
And already in the 80s, the production of New Year's decorations was put on stream, millions of glass balls “scattered across the country,” and now they are in almost every home. Glass colorful balls now cost 100-200 rubles.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Schneider, having learned about the high cost of his collection, is in no hurry to say goodbye to it. Who knows, maybe in ten years they will increase in price even more?
“I’m not dependent on money,” the pensioner says firmly. – Therefore, I will leave these beautiful Christmas tree decorations to my grandchildren! And if they want, let them sell...

These toys were painted by hand; you definitely won’t find two identical ones. For each of them you will be paid 5,000 rubles