The Award Years: Winning 'Doll of the Year' and Finding My Way to Miniatures

There was a season of my life when my dolls left the quiet of my home and went out into the world.

They stood on fair tables in Moscow, were held by strangers, won awards, and travelled to new homes in different countries. Looking back, I can still feel the surprise of it all.

My First Fair Stand

It began with a single photo report of my own little stand at the Formula Rukodeliya craft fair in the autumn of 2011. I remember how strange it felt to see my dolls lined up in public, no longer just the quiet things I made at home.

After that, the invitations kept coming. There were baby and mother festivals, design markets, and the Moscow designers' union fairs in the old parks of the city.

The Doll of the Year

Then, in the spring of 2012, something happened that I still think about. Two of my dolls — Lelya and Nadyusha — were entered into a competition at the Moscow International Doll and Teddy Bear Fair. And they won first place, in the category of souvenier doll.

Winning 'Doll of the Year' felt big and small at the same time. Big, because my work had been recognised. Small, because in the end they were still just two dolls I had loved into being, one stitch at a time.

The same dolls won the same category again later that year, at the Art of the Doll exhibition. To this day, it remains one of the proudest chapters of my making life.

Two Hundred Dolls

Halfway through 2012 I reached a milestone that made me stop and take a breath: my two hundredth doll.

In two years of loving, obsessive doll-making, two hundred dolls had each been given a character, a soul, and a home. Many of them now live in different corners of the world.

Exhibitions, Charity, and a Quiet Legacy

Through those years I also made dolls for good causes — charity auctions and fund-raising fairs — and shared master classes so that others could discover the same joy of making.

When I finally compiled a single page of everything those years had held — every fair, every award, every exhibition — I was surprised by how much had accumulated from one small, quiet beginning.

The Lesson of Those Years

Those years taught me that a craft done with love can take on a life of its own. A doll made in a kitchen at night can end up on a fair table, then in a magazine, then in the arms of a child in another country.

And when the textile years eventually gave way to miniature sculpting, I carried that lesson with me: begin small, make with love, and let the work find its own way out into the world.

Begin small, make with love, and let the work find its own way.