A toy and a "lubok" have much in common. A goat in a folk picture "Pashka ate some porridge" looks like a carved wooden toy with his legs put to the body, his head is taken side-face and full-face. "Lubok" stimulated toy industry. For example, different toys appeared after the famous "lubok" "Mice bury a cat". Satirical images of monks are borrowed from the foreign "luboks" though this topic is discussed in the Russian folklore as well. The images of merchants are also popular in "luboks" and toys. "Master cracker - the implement for nut cracking - biting satire on the swaggering landowners.

In the XYIth century in Ryazan province funny statuettes of soldiers and clerks were made, in Tambov province ceramic images of the tzar dynasty were popular. In 1905 a statuette of a tzar sitting on three policemen appeared; at that time there were a lot of caricatures like this one.

A series of toys presenting a satirical fairy-tale "Mushrooms' War" appeared in Moscow art shops in 1915. Different mushrooms were the symbols of all classes in the society (a senator in a gown lying on the pillows under a big fly-agaris; dandies - honey-agaris with thin stems; rich men - saffron milk caps; tzar - baletus).

One of the professional artists in Russia was N. Bartram - the founder of the first Russian toy museum. He thought that "every person who makes toys has to have a sense of humour". N. Bartram also drew caricatures of his friends and colleagues, for example, a caricature of the famous Russian artist V. Serov.

In France the drafts for toys were made by Karan-d'Ache, in Germany - by V. Busha. These toys are the statuettes of Max and Moritz - humorous characters, monks, and others. The toy "Papa Tzille" presents a famous caricaturist with an album full of humorous pictures. There are a lot of funny toys for adults only: a cigarette-case in a shape of a camel, with a cigarette under its tail; an English toy "Naked Freddy" that looks like one of the crown dynasty; a drunkard with a bottle reeling from side to side; Devil that puts out his tongue and pulls drunkard's hair.

A shape of a toy is often used in caricatures -"Matryoshkas" ( I. Semyonov "Nepotism" , the "Krokodil" magazine, 1961), New Year's tree decorations (V. Fomichyov "Christmas tree of American "Mad", 1960s), "vanka-vstanka, hammerers, money-boxes.

Folk wooden dolls in the Northern parts of Russia were made in the cubistic style before the famous artists-cubists of the XXth century. A lot of political toys appeared in the early 1990s: masks and money-boxes with the images of some political leaders. Matryoshka is also very popular. (Gorbachyov - Brezhnev - Khrustchyov - Stalin - Lenin).

* matryoshka- a wooden doll with successively smaller ones fitted into it.