Cotton Wool Christmas Tree Decorations in the USSR: How They Were Made and Why Glass Became More Popular

Cotton wool tree ornaments in the USSR were made both by hand and in factories: figurines were built around wire frames, while fruit shapes produced in quantity were wound and pressed. The cotton wool was secured with an adhesive, dried and painted; the characters’ faces were often made separately. In the second half of the 20th century, production of glass ornaments increased, and cotton wool figurines gradually gave way to them on the branches. Freestanding figures of Ded Moroz continued to be placed beneath the tree: hanging ornaments and standing figures served different purposes.

When did cotton wool ornaments first appear on the tree?

Cotton wool tree ornaments existed in Russia before Soviet New Year celebrations. The Museum of Moscow dates references to such figurines in memoirs and children’s books to the mid-19th century and links the technique of using glue-soaked fibres to the German Christmas tree tradition. In the 1930s, Soviet New Year celebrations brought new subjects and production by craft cooperatives to cotton wool ornaments; the technique itself had existed earlier.

In a pre-revolutionary home, people could make their own figurines from cotton wool. It required no glassblowing furnace and allowed them to create three-dimensional forms without handling hot raw materials. Yet paper, cardboard, sweets and glass already hung alongside it on the tree. According to material from the Zelenograd Museum, by the mid-19th century, trees in Russia were being decorated with objects of various kinds; this is an important correction to the account that all ornaments were initially made of cotton wool and were later replaced by glass.

A new phase began following the decision in late 1935 to resume children’s New Year tree celebrations. The Museum of Moscow describes the emergence of ornament-making craft cooperatives in the second half of the decade. A collection published in 1937 by the People’s Commissariat for Education and the Toy Committee shows how seriously festive decorations were taken: its contents include a separate article by A. Rusakov entitled ‘Cotton Wool Tree Ornaments’. The Presidential Library catalogue confirms the collection’s contents and publication details; the article’s inclusion demonstrates the technique’s place in discussions of working methods at the time, but provides no production figures.

According to historian Alla Salnikova, production of glass ornaments in the USSR resumed in 1936. It is therefore more accurate to describe the late 1930s as a period of parallel development: craft cooperatives and makers explored forms in both cotton wool and glass. Later, glass ornament production increased, gradually changing the mix of festive decorations.

What do we know about ornament production in the late 1930s?

After children’s New Year tree celebrations resumed, craft cooperatives and factories began production, but cotton wool ornaments accounted for only part of the industry. By comparing price lists and collections, historian Natalya Polonnikova identified, in Moscow and the Moscow Region in 1938, 61 enterprises producing tree ornaments; 12 of them worked with cotton wool. This figure covers two regions and one specific year. It cannot be used to establish cotton wool ornaments’ share of sales nationwide.

Production varied in scale. Those named by Polonnikova include the ‘Everything for the Child’, ‘Tree Ornament’ and Shaumyan craft cooperatives, as well as the factory of the Kuibyshev District Industrial Trust and workshops at Krasnopresnensky Park of Culture. A shared material did not mean a shared artistic style. A craft cooperative might make character figurines, while an enterprise equipped with machinery could expand production of fruit and other repeatable shapes.

The library catalogue entry for D. V. Krivolapov’s booklet ‘Making Cotton Wool Ornaments’ records a 47-page edition published in 1937. Its contents distinguish between manual and mechanical methods, with separate sections on dyeing the fibres, making vegetables, berries, animals and human figures, operating a spindle machine and finishing the completed item. This shows that the craft was being systematically documented for professionals: the technique was described for manufacturers, rather than solely as a pastime at home.

The history before the 1930s is less clear than it sometimes appears. The Museum of Moscow reports references to cotton wool ornaments from the mid-19th century, yet Polonnikova finds no reliably documented succession of pre-revolutionary Russian manufacturers: trade catalogues also feature imported items. The presence of such an object on a Russian tree and its manufacture in Russia are therefore two different claims. Establishing the origin of a particular old ornament would require purchase records, markings or workshop archives.

How was cotton wool turned into a three-dimensional figurine?

A handmade figurine was built around a wire frame. The maker wound layers of cotton wool around it, shaped them and applied starch paste, then painted the surface and added details once it had dried. This sequence is described by the State Historical Museum of the Southern Urals with reference to objects in its collection. The paste stiffened the loose material and created a surface to which paint could adhere.

A character’s overall pose was not the only important feature. The Museum of the Southern Urals notes papier-mâché faces attached to cotton wool figurines, with facial features painted by hand. The body and face mask could be made of different materials. This helps explain why, on a surviving ornament, the clothing has a soft texture while the face is smooth and more detailed: it was made separately.

The technique became more complex for a large Ded Moroz figure. The Zheleznogorsk City Museum describes a 30-centimetre-tall figure made by Yaroslavl Factory No. 3 in the 1960s, incorporating wire, textiles and a wooden base. On such pieces, the face was moulded from papier-mâché, wax or modelling paste, while the clothing was made from cotton wool or paper. After painting, the surface was coated with paste; decorative ‘glass snow’ could be added for sparkle. Thus, the term ‘cotton wool ornament’ describes the principal technique, rather than necessarily implying the absence of other materials.

What materials and processes lay behind the term ‘cotton wool ornament’?

An ornament’s materials depended on what the maker wanted to depict. A human figure required a frame and often a separate face mask; a fruit needed volume, colour and a means of attachment; a freestanding figure needed a base capable of supporting its weight. Krivolapov’s catalogue lists not only cotton wool but also adhesives, dyes, auxiliary materials, finishing materials and fire-resistant materials. A historical object should therefore be understood through its layers, rather than through a single general name.

Polonnikova’s study describes how coloured cotton wool was prepared before shaping. The fibres were dyed, dried and, if necessary, combed again to restore their loft; layers were then built up and the shape secured with an adhesive. Colour preparation and painting the finished surface served different purposes: the former coloured the material itself, while the latter defined facial features or small details. The catalogue entry for Krivolapov’s 1937 booklet also lists these operations separately: ‘Dyeing Cotton Wool’ and ‘Painting and Finishing Cotton Wool Ornaments’.

Starch paste was a common binder, but not the only one. I. A. Neverova’s study of technical literature from the 1930s also mentions other adhesives, including cherry gum, gelatine and gum arabic. Historical formulations were more varied than the familiar shorthand ‘cotton wool and paste’ suggests. It is therefore impossible to claim that all Soviet pieces followed a single recipe, or that a modern workshop reproduces the exact materials of every old museum piece.

The way a festive figurine caught the light also mattered. The Lesnoy City Museum describes a fine decorative sprinkling of glass used to give the surface a shimmer. On a cotton wool Ded Moroz, this did not turn the body into a glass ornament: cotton wool remained the underlying material, while the sparkling layer served as a finish. Neverova points out that some old finishing substances are no longer used today for safety reasons. Descriptions of historical techniques should therefore not be taken as practical instructions for recreating them.

The choice of adhesive also depended on the desired surface appearance. In her discussion of Krivolapov’s 1937 manual, Polonnikova notes that the author preferred transparent binders: they did not discolour white or previously dyed cotton wool. The same account recommended treating the fibres with a fire-resistant compound before shaping. These are important production details, but not a universal recipe: a recommendation in a manual does not prove that every surviving piece underwent such treatment. The materials of a particular object are established through its museum description or material analysis.

Were all Soviet cotton wool ornaments made in the same way?

No. Early figurines were often made by hand, but factories later used mechanised winding and pressing of cotton wool. The Museum of the Southern Urals illustrates this distinction through its own collection: alongside individually crafted characters, it holds factory-made mushrooms, cucumbers, apples, pears and lemons. Machine processing did not always eliminate painting and finishing; it allowed the basic shape to be reproduced.

The difference is also apparent in the nature of the objects. Cotton wool over a wire frame lends itself to human or animal poses: arms can be bent, the body turned, and a sledge or swing added. Pressing suits the repeatable volume of a fruit or mushroom. This is an editorial inference drawn from the methods and objects described by the museum, rather than a universal rule for every factory. These collections cannot establish the precise balance of manual and mechanised labour across the USSR.

The illustrations in Salnikova’s book allow objects to be compared without relying on assumptions based on the general name of their material. In the caption for L. Blatt’s collection, a mushroom from the 1960s is described as pressed cotton wool with gouache painting and cardboard, while a giraffe from the 1950s is described as painted cotton wool with mica. Both belong to the same material category, but their construction and finish differ. The date given in a museum or collection description therefore needs to be considered alongside the technique: an ornament’s age alone does not reveal whether it was hand-shaped, wound or pressed.

Which characters were chosen for cotton wool ornaments?

Cotton wool figurines depicted children, fairy-tale characters, animals and recognisable figures of their time. The Museum of Moscow lists polar explorers, pilots, tank crewmen, cosmonauts, characters from books and films, vegetables and fruit among the subjects of Soviet tree ornaments. This list spans different years; a particular motif cannot automatically be attributed to any given factory or dated precisely from its subject alone.

The collection of the Museum of the Southern Urals offers a closer look at cotton wool pieces from the 1930s–1960s. The objects described include boys on sledges, a girl on a swing, a clown with a guitar, two Little Red Riding Hood figures with different costume details, a giraffe and a zebra. Such differences show how the artist created a miniature narrative: pose and accessories conveyed as much about the character as the face. The presence of two versions of Little Red Riding Hood in one collection also reminds us that a shared theme did not imply a single, unchanging design.

A new subject on the tree did not always immediately become a series of cotton wool ornaments. The Zelenograd Museum links ‘Clock’ ornaments to the 1956 film Carnival Night, and rockets and cosmonauts to the 1960s; its page discusses the ornament industry as a whole. For the history of cotton wool ornaments specifically, the material of a particular museum piece is a more reliable basis than the familiar list of ‘Soviet themes’ with no indication of how the objects were made.

Who devised the themes, and how did a design enter production?

The figurines were first conceived by artists, sculptors and craftspeople in production cooperatives, before being adapted for manufacture. The Lesnoy City Museum names T. Gidirimskaya, V. Gromchevskaya and O. Trauber among the designers; it also mentions competitions for new designs at major enterprises. This explains why similar characters could appear in different poses and costumes: the artist’s vision met the practical capabilities of the workshop.

A particularly revealing document cited by historian Natalya Polonnikova is a 1949 sample album from the Toy Research Institute. Its pages list cotton wool figures entitled ‘The Snow Maiden’, ‘The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish’ and ‘The Tale of the Golden Cockerel’, bearing the name of F. I. Oveshkova. For a researcher, this is firmer evidence than an attribution based on resemblance to a literary story: the album links a specific design, its creator and an institution. The existence of a sample does not, however, establish the scale on which each model was produced.

The same study describes ‘The Female Parachutist’, made in Moscow by the Christmas Tree Ornament cooperative in 1939–1941 and attributed to the artist Sapozhnikova, and the composition ‘The “North Pole” Drifting Station’ by the artist L. V. Starovoit. The latter’s materials include cotton wool, wire, thread and fabric. The title identifies the subject, while the list of components reveals how a complex miniature was assembled. Not every Arctic-themed ornament was made from cotton wool; here, the materials are recorded for specific objects.

Researcher Darya Radchenko shows that the Soviet range combined birds, animals and fairy-tale characters with themes of aviation, the Arctic and technology. Ideological themes did not fill the entire tree. Moreover, a design’s journey to the customer passed through artistic and technical committees, production management, wholesale depots and a shop, so responses to events could be delayed. The date of a film or flight is therefore not in itself the date an ornament was released, even when the connection between its subject and the event is clear.

Why did Father Frost stand beneath the tree while other figurines hung from its branches?

Large cotton wool characters needed a stable base, so Father Frost and the Snow Maiden were often placed beneath the tree. The Museum of the Southern Urals describes a broad, flat bottom or a wooden stand; the Museum of Moscow dates the development of designs for standing figures to the revival of New Year celebrations in the second half of the 1930s. They occupied a different place in the festive display and presented different structural requirements, although their materials and finishing techniques remained similar to those of small hanging ornaments.

The Zheleznogorsk collection includes figurines made by various enterprises between the 1950s and the 1980s, including Yaroslavl Factory No. 3, Leningrad Toy Factory No. 2 and the Voronezh Toy Factory. Their continued production means we cannot say that glass had replaced all cotton wool ornaments by any single date. The mix of decorations on the branches changed, while the large figure beneath the tree retained its own role.

What happened to cotton wool ornaments during and after the war?

During the war, trees continued to be decorated with homemade and shop-bought ornaments; by December 1944, the quality of some cotton wool figurines in Chelyabinsk shops was drawing complaints. Vladislav Demakov, a researcher at the Museum of the Southern Urals, cites the diary of Chelyabinsk resident Boris Kataev: before welcoming in 1944, he made festive decorations at home to supplement those he had bought. The diary documents one family’s practice, rather than a universal way of decorating trees.

The 26 December 1944 issue of the newspaper Chelyabinsky Rabochy, examined by the museum, published criticism of ornaments in the city’s department store: the writer complained about poorly shaped cotton wool figurines that were barely recognisable as a clown, a heron or a mushroom. The newspaper review shows that the ready availability of cotton wool did not in itself guarantee a recognisable result. This evidence concerns a particular shop at a particular moment; it would be a mistake to extend its judgement to every cooperative and every decade.

The Museum of the Southern Urals reports that wartime decorations were also made from newspapers, cardboard and whatever brightly coloured materials were available. Cotton wool figurines appeared alongside homemade garlands. According to historian Natalya Polonnikova, ornament production was back at full capacity by 1944. The Zelenograd Museum describes the late 1940s and early 1950s as a period when industrial production was being established: recovery after the wartime interruption and subsequent expansion were distinct stages. The newspaper criticism of December 1944 shows that resuming work did not guarantee consistent quality.

The Museum of the Southern Urals has finely detailed characters and factory-made fruit ornaments; the Zelenograd Museum preserves homemade ornaments from the late 1940s and early 1950s made from painted light bulbs. These objects challenge the simple notion that ‘after the war, everything became factory-made’. Some craftspeople sought ways to produce the same shape more quickly, while other families continued to use whatever was at hand.

It was during the 1940s and 1950s that cotton wool processing techniques were refined. Polonnikova describes shaping in plaster moulds, hot pressing and the development of a spindle machine, along with acceptance specifications and measures to reduce defects set out in a 1950 manual. This document provides evidence of quality requirements introduced after the complaints about poorly shaped figurines in Chelyabinsk in December 1944.

Why did mechanisation fail to make cotton wool ornaments easy to mass-produce?

Machinery made it quicker to reproduce three-dimensional forms, but many operations still had to be done by hand. According to Polonnikova’s research, in the late 1930s a craftsperson could make a daily average of seven Father Frost figures or sixty cotton wool fruit ornaments. These were different products requiring different amounts of labour; the figures should not be treated as a universal production standard for every factory. They explain why the industry sought machinery primarily for simple shapes.

The Lesnoy City Museum reports that the Gigrovata factory in Leningrad was using a cotton wool winding machine as early as 1936. The rounded or elongated shapes of apples, pears and cucumbers lent themselves to this operation more readily than a human face, costume or pose. Hot pressing also came into use in the late 1930s, particularly for animals: the two resulting halves were joined together and then painted. These were two distinct approaches to mechanisation, both of which retained stages of hand finishing.

Using a spindle machine, a craftsperson wound cotton wool impregnated with a binder around a rotating core, following a template. Removing the piece left a hole that had to be filled with the same fibre; finishing and painting followed. Polonnikova even describes attempts to work on several blanks at once using an extended spindle. The machine reproduced the outline, but did not remove people from the process or make every figurine quick to mass-produce.

Pressing had a different limitation: the researcher notes its high electricity costs, while hand shaping was time-consuming. As a result, post-war methods did not always deliver the savings manufacturers had hoped for. This explanation rests on her analysis of technical documents; it does not mean that all cotton wool products were unprofitable everywhere. Particular care is needed when discussing large standing figures, which had their own role beneath the tree.

Why did glass become more prominent among Soviet festive decorations?

The Museum of Moscow links the declining popularity of cotton wool ornaments to the large-scale production of glass decorations in the second half of the 20th century. Glass gradually accounted for a greater share of the mass-market festive range. In the 1960s price lists studied by historian Natalya Polonnikova, the cotton wool products that remained were most often standing figures.

Glass ornaments also passed through craftspeople’s hands. The Museum of the Southern Urals describes ornaments in its collection that were blown through a tube, then coated with coloured lacquer or a silvering compound, painted and fitted with an attachment. A present-day Moscow factory, which was reported on by the city’s competence centre in 2024, follows a similar overall sequence: blowing from hollow tubes, silvering the inside, drying and painting by hand. The 2024 account of the factory helps explain glassworking techniques, but does not in itself provide documentary evidence of production volumes in the USSR.

Salnikova writes that a new standard method of silvering ornaments was introduced in production cooperatives in 1948; this change concerned the finishing of glass surfaces rather than the shaping of cotton wool figures. In the 1950s, glass ornaments were also produced beyond Moscow and Leningrad: the researcher cites factory workers in the settlement of Vasilyevo near Kazan, who made small batches for sale and for family and friends. This example shows the craft spreading geographically, but does not allow us to estimate national production volumes.

How did glass ornament production change the range and labour costs?

In the 1950s and 1960s, the organisation of ornament production as a whole was changing, as well as the materials used for individual ornaments. Darya Radchenko links the post-war rise in demand to the gradual consolidation of production cooperatives and the transformation of workshops into factories from the mid-1950s onwards. This broadened the range, but also increased the pressure for consistency and the fulfilment of production targets. In the second half of the 1960s, manufacturers paid ever closer attention to production costs and the speed of individual operations.

Radchenko cites figures for the proportion of manual work at particular glass factories in the 1960s: 95 per cent at the Reshetnikovo Factory in 1964 and around 80 per cent at the Moscow Glass Christmas Tree Ornament Factory towards the end of the decade. These figures apply only to the named sites, rather than the industry as a whole. They challenge the convenient assumption that glass ornaments were made without human involvement from the outset, while cotton wool ornaments were made entirely by hand.

There were differences within the glass range itself. Simple baubles and mould-blown ornaments were quicker to make than free-blown pieces with fused-on details. By the late 1960s, elaborate clip-on figurines required extensive painting and assembly, while defects increased their production costs; Radchenko’s analysis indicates that demand was shifting towards baubles, bead garlands and more stylised hanging ornaments. Production could increase the number of glass pieces while simplifying their designs. The word ‘glass’ alone therefore tells us little about how much labour went into a particular ornament.

The Museum of the Southern Urals confirms the variety of techniques: its collection includes blown-glass baubles and characters, as well as ornaments assembled from glass bugle beads on wire, which were popular in the 1950s. The latter were assembled into little chairs, bicycles, boats or lanterns; their geometry differed from the soft, modelled forms of cotton wool figures. Museum collections show that hanging glass-bead ornaments and cotton wool figurines coexisted in the mid-20th century.

According to Radchenko’s research, production of polymer ornaments was expanding by the late 1960s; these could be cast in moulds more quickly than many glass pieces could be made. The Museum of the Southern Urals notes later standing figures made from plastic and polystyrene foam, which served a similar purpose to cotton wool Father Frost figures. Factories were already experimenting with polymer hanging ornaments in the late 1960s, and plastic figures later appeared beneath the tree; these changes did not happen all at once.

Polonnikova notes that replacing silvering with aluminising for glass ornaments reduced both production time and costs. Her study compares this change with the costs of pressing and hand finishing cotton wool pieces. However, this explanation applies to the techniques and periods she examined; without comparable cost calculations from every factory, we cannot claim that a glass ornament was always cheaper to make than a cotton wool figurine. Even within the same material category, a simple bauble and an intricately painted character required different amounts of labour.

Did cotton wool ornaments disappear once glass became widespread?

No. The most cautious conclusion to draw from museum sources is that cotton wool ornaments lost their former mass-market role, but continued to be produced and were kept by families. The Zheleznogorsk collection includes figurines from the 1950s–1980s; the Museum of the Southern Urals collection shows that simpler standing figures made from plastic and polystyrene foam later appeared alongside them. The Museum of Moscow also notes that imported plastic decorations in the 1990s accelerated the decline of cotton wool ornaments. Attributing their displacement solely to glass therefore cuts the story short.

In the 2010s and 2020s, interest in the technique returned in a different context. The Museum of Moscow featured the Moscow workshop Moskovskaya Igrushka, where craftspeople revived the use of cotton wool, paste and paints. The exhibition ‘Wonders on the Christmas Tree: The History of Cotton Wool Ornaments’ ran from 17 December 2024 to 19 January 2025; it serves as a source on techniques and collections, rather than a current event listing for November 2026. Another Museum of Moscow exhibition, in Zelenograd, ended on 1 March 2026.

Surviving standing figures show particularly clearly that the change in materials did not happen in a single year. In her captions to the L. Blatt collection, Salnikova presents cotton wool Father Frost figures and a Snow Maiden from the 1950s–1960s alongside a plastic Snow Maiden from the 1960s–1970s and a plastic Father Frost bearing an inscription dated 1967. Comparing specific objects confirms that these types coexisted, but this evidence does not establish their share of purchases or how long such figurines remained on sale.

How can a museum object help verify its history?

Start with the material, construction and documented dating, rather than a familiar subject alone. The caption for the cotton wool ‘Female Parachutist’ made by a Moscow craft cooperative in the late 1930s and described by Polonnikova identifies the cooperative, the artist and the materials used; for the Ded Moroz figurine from Zheleznogorsk, the maker, decade, height and base are known. Such details allow us to discuss an object's production techniques and context. An ordinary family ornament without a label may not have such a precisely documented history.

When investigating such an object, it is useful to distinguish three types of evidence. First, examine the object itself: its base, attachment, the material used for the face and traces of paintwork. Then find a comparable museum exhibit with documented techniques and dating. Finally, look for evidence of provenance — a factory label, a box, a purchase record or a museum acquisition document. The first two steps provide a sound basis for comparison; the last is needed to identify the maker with confidence. The material itself calls for this caution: similar cotton wool forms were used by several workshops and persisted from one decade to the next.

Surviving ornaments show how gradually these changes took place. Wire frames, papier-mâché faces and pressed cotton wool reveal the different techniques used by craftspeople; glass baubles coexisted with these figurines. A museum's description of a particular object's materials, construction and provenance helps trace changes in production techniques more precisely than an approximate date of manufacture.

The theme of Soviet Christmas tree decorations is explored further in the ‘Journey into Christmas’ New Year tour. On a walk through Manezhnaya Square, Nikolskaya Street, Red Square and GUM, the bureau discusses festive traditions and the toys that children in the USSR dreamed of. The programme does not promise a viewing of historic cotton wool figurines.

Sources

1. Museum of Moscow — Wonders on the Christmas Tree. The History of Cotton Wool Ornaments
2. Museum of Moscow — New Year Ornaments and Christmas Tree Decorations
3. Presidential Library — The Christmas Tree: a collection published by the People's Commissariat for Education and the Toy Committee, 1937
4. State Historical Museum of the Southern Urals — The Festivities Continue… Christmas Tree Ornaments
5. Zheleznogorsk City Museum — Father Frost New Year Ornament
6. Moscow Analytical Centre — Christmas Tree Ornament Factory Joins the National Labour Productivity Project
7. D. V. Krivolapov — Making Cotton Wool Toys, 1937. Belinka Digital Library
8. Natalya Polonnikova — Back on the Christmas Tree. On the History of Cotton Wool Christmas Tree Ornaments in Russia
9. I. A. Neverova — Contemporary Cotton Wool Christmas Tree Ornaments in Russia: Prospects for Development
10. Lesnoy Museum and Exhibition Complex — New Year in the Attic
11. Vladislav Demakov, State Historical Museum of the Southern Urals — Chelyabinsk Residents Celebrate the New Year
12. Darya Radchenko — Sputnik on the Christmas Tree. Neprikosnovenny Zapas, 2023
13. Alla Salnikova — A History of Christmas Tree Decorations, or How the Soviet Christmas Tree Was Decorated, 2011
14. mos-radius.ru — «Journey to Christmas»