The world’s largest Russian doll
Thursday, 8th January 2009 by Ian Brown
Matryoshkas, or Russian dolls, are sets of wooden figures of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other. With a Russian name and a long Russian history, you might be slightly surprised to discover that the world's largest Russian doll, is in Manzhouli, China.
This 30m high replica Matryoshka was built in 2007 to act as a tourist attraction. It features pictures of Chinese, Mongolian and Russian girls to reflect the ethnicities of the region. The plaza also includes 200 smaller dolls decorated with famous people from around the world.
This Inner Mongolian city is China's busiest land port of entry, handling 60% of imports and exports to Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as trains between Beijing and Moscow. The huge train yards and station indicate the importance of rail in this region.
The border between the two countries is marked by another impressive plaza, gates and the usual posts of officialdom.
Photos of the doll and other areas of the city can be seen at Panoramio.
Thanks to Micradott.
About the author
Ian Brown lives in Ottawa, Canada, and spends his spare time perusing maps to find new routes to ride on his orange bicycle.
I was there 2 years ago. An old Chinese man came up and stared at us. Apparently he had lived there his whole life and had only ever seen Chinese people and Russians, he had never herd English before.
The giant doll is great. My favorite things about google maps are giant type and giant objects.
However, that train station isn’t so extraordinarly large. Maschen in northern Germany for example is bigger:
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