How are Christmas decorations made? Children from Nizhny Novgorod can get an answer to this question at the factory of glass Christmas decorations "Ariel". Here all year round - in spring, and summer, and autumn, and winter - they make Christmas balls and funny glass figurines, which then decorate Christmas trees in different countries of the world.
About how Christmas tree decorations, beloved by both children and adults, are made, the masters of the factory, where New Year celebrated non-stop, willingly tell and show to everyone. And there are quite a few of them: every day the factory accepts 16 excursion groups! About 300 children of all ages - from students lower grades to school graduates and students of technical schools - they come to the factory to get acquainted with the process of creating a Christmas tree toy.
"Journey to the country of Christmas tree decorations" begins with an acquaintance with the history of the Nizhny Novgorod Christmas decorations and the history of fishing. It turns out that the first glass balls appeared in Germany in the middle of the 19th century. With the help of a glass tube, which was first heated on a kerosene stove, and later on a gas burner, glassblowers blew balls of various sizes. Hot glass becomes viscous, and can take a variety of forms. At the Ariel factory, glassblowers blow 250-300 balls in 6 hours! Each ball is unique because it is made by hand and not by machine. To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the bottom of the ball - there was a trace left at the place where the glass thread was twisted - or, as glassblowers call it, a "whisker". The second tendril - on the opposite side of the ball - is either twisted into a neat glass loop, or - which makes work cheaper - they are sawn off and covered with a metal cap, for which they hang the toy on the Christmas tree.
All balls are initially transparent, as bubble. They are dipped into a barrel of paint, giving a background color - red, blue, green or, for example, gold. And when the paint dries, the master artists begin to work. They manually paint the surface of the ball. It could be an image fairy tale hero, winter landscape or some architectural sights of various countries of the world.
Glassblowers can make not only balls, but also different figures. To do this, a heated glass tube is lowered into special forms - in the form of a bunny, a snowman or Santa Claus. Such toys are called shaped. One of the first molded toys that began to be made at the Ariel factory was the Nutcracker figurine. Then dozens of other very different figures appeared: various little animals, cockerels, goldfish, heroes, grandmothers with a pockmarked chicken, etc.
You can see all this variety of New Year's toys in the museum of the factory: about a thousand of various Christmas tree decorations are collected here. The museum's exposition includes christmas toys made and painted by Nizhny Novgorod masters in different years, and old Soviet toys produced by different factories Soviet Union. From these figurines, one can trace the most important milestones in the development of the country - the first manned flight into space, the massive sowing of corn - a symbol of the era of Nikita Khrushchev, and much more. At the exhibition, you can also see Christmas balls from different collections: balls with the image of Santa Claus and Father Frost - the way he is presented in different countries of the world; balloons with plots of famous fairy tales - "Three Little Pigs", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", etc., as well as with the heroes of Russian fairy tales - for example, with Emelya.
A separate place is allocated for the "New Year's Khokhloma": balls and nesting dolls with the famous gold painting, glass spoons and even samovars, 
which glassblowers managed to blow out of glass! In the same place, in the museum, you can see fragile Easter eggs and glass medallions with delicate Easter drawings.
Among the exhibits there are balloons depicting Moscow metro stations, made for the anniversary of the metro. On the convex surfaces of the balls, the artists managed to depict both deep metro tunnels and the splendor of old Moscow stations.
A special place in the exposition is given to balloons from the collection of famous people: for example, balloons depicting the sights of Moscow, St. Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Putin gave it to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. In a separate box are balloons depicting Russian winter fun, which were presented to guests at Dmitry Medvedev's reception.
And in the collection of Nizhny Novgorod craftsmen there are balloons with the image of Barack Obama, which were made by special order of the US Presidential Administration. The masters say that a special order for their manufacture was made by the administration of the President of the United States. The agreement was long and not easy: at first, the artists painted an image of Obama with a wide smile on the ball, because they knew that this charming smile was his business card. But the Americans said that the president in the image was “too cheerful” and asked to portray him more strictly. As a result, the option with a restrained smile was adopted as the basis. And a broadly smiling Obama remained in Nizhny Novgorod as a keepsake!
The craftsmen are especially proud of the unique New Year's balls dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Bavarian crown. Images of Bavarian castles and their decoration, the crown itself, portraits of Bavarian kings were sent to Nizhny Novgorod for work. And the customers were satisfied with the results of the work!
All this is told and shown to the guys who came on the tour by the masters
Ariel factory. Boys and girls watch with bated breath as glassblowers blow out balls of various sizes and make molded toys - figures of snowmen, bunnies, Santa Claus, etc. Factory employees explain the subtleties and secrets of craftsmanship.
And in the art workshops, in front of the guests, the factory's craftsmen manually paint fragile glass Christmas tree decorations. Children are told about how a drawing is applied, paints are selected, how toys are powdered with glitter and “gold”.
At the end of the tour, the children go to a master class, where they are given the opportunity to paint Christmas tree figurines or balls on their own. Then these toys are packed in special boxes so that children can bring fragile souvenirs home and show them to their relatives. Such balls become the best souvenir of a trip to the factory, where the New Year lives all year round.
Today there will be an industrial report from the Beauty and the Beast series.
When you take out a bright ball from a beautiful package, which you then hang on a New Year tree, you probably don’t even think about where and how it was made.
Yes, the bulk of Christmas decorations now come from China, but still not all.
There are four enterprises in Ukraine that produce good old glass Christmas decorations and it is quite possible that some of the balls on your Christmas tree are made on one of them.
For example, at a completely old-school factory, which is located not far from Kyiv.
It's hard to believe that colorful balloons can be produced in such an entourage trashy place.
Also, how hard it is to believe that each ball is blown by workers to the detriment of their health, because the production of Christmas decorations is incredibly harmful.
So, welcome to the place where the real soviet trash and the magic of the holiday, loved by millions of people, are wonderfully combined - the Klavdiev Christmas tree decorations factory.
2. Klavdievskaya factory has been operating since the distant 1949 and today is gradually getting out of the long-term crisis caused by the collapse of the USSR.
I can imagine how difficult it is for an enterprise that operates only 2 months a year to survive in the face of the massive expansion of cheap Chinese consumer goods.
This is probably why I don’t want to paint this report in critical colors, but just talk about how ordinary people in an old Soviet factory make beauty for the main holiday of the year 
3. The factory has four workshops, which are located in different buildings.
It all starts with the glass blower, which is located in this old two-story building with cheerful multi-colored pipes. 
4. The factory has found a great way to increase profits in addition to the main activity - the production of toys.
It allows you to pay money to see how it's done.
And this is a huge tribute! I love doing industrial reporting and it usually takes some effort to get production shots.
And here the company itself shows how everything is done.
And, needless to say, very successful.
We shot on a weekday and the flow of visitors was just incredible. Literally crowds of children and all arriving and arriving buses. 
5. Scoop here, of course, everywhere.
And it's very ambivalent.
This photo shows two completely different generations of slogans) 
6. I wonder what party they work for here now) 
7. Glassblowing shop. Workplace plain - a gas burner, pipes with gas and oxygen, an exhaust chute and a table. 
8. Hellish labor. In the truest sense of the word. 
9. The raw material for the Christmas tree decoration is ... hollow glass tubes.
First, they are heated and divided into blanks for balls.
Heated glass begins to melt, becomes plastic and ductile. This separates the desired parts of the tube. 
10. Then this elongated fused piece of glass is twisted with a special hook on one side to drown out this strange tube on one side.
Surprisingly, these fused pieces of glass still remain hollow inside.
After all, the ball will then be blown out. 
11. Then the blanks are again heated on the burner to the desired temperature 
12. In the hand of the future Christmas ball 
13. And when the glass reaches the right temperature, the worker simply blows into the tube, blowing out the ball. 
14. Glass should be hot, red. Its temperature is about 1000 degrees. The worker has only a few seconds to blow the balloon.
And it must be the right size.
Sometimes they check the caliber with a special measuring device, which stands on the table nearby. 
15. Ball blanks look like a large transparent drop. The leg through which the balloon was blown does not break off. It will still be needed for silvering and coloring.
One worker blows 150-200 balloons per shift. 
16. Before sending to the silver plating shop 
17. This is a different building. There are workshops for silvering, coloring and decorating balls 
18. And Again, a real old school - safety posters. These photos are for olgalit
. She knows everything about safety and even more. Urgently everyone friend her!!! 
19. She is spying on you! 
20. Instructions from 1989! 
21. But it's time to go to the shop. It is here, in this picturesque place, that real magic is created with balls - they are silvered 
22. Feeling as if we are in some kind of torture chamber. 
23. And here is the tool that I asked about yesterday, offering to make assumptions about its purpose.
This is a needle for injecting a special solution into the ball, which covers the inside of the glass ball with a thin layer of silver paint. 
24. The solution consists of silver oxide, ammonia and distilled water.
It is injected quite a bit, then the workpiece is shaken so that the solution covers the walls inside the ball and is lowered for a few seconds into a bath with water heated to 50 degrees, while shaking.
The silver solution solidifies on the walls of the ball, covering them with the thinnest uniform layer. The process is called the "silver mirror reaction".
Then the balls get to the external painting area, where they are covered with one color or another. And then they get to the most interesting part... 
25. You can’t shoot here, because it is very distracting for workers and prevents them from doing magic.
But we were kindly allowed 
25. Here the balls are turned into those beautiful Christmas decorations that we are used to.
They are painted here. 
26. Each Christmas decoration is painted manually according to a sample template. 
27. All the guys who work in this room are graduates of art schools and schools. After all, their task is to make toys amazing 
28. They draw in parts. For example, first white snow is applied to the entire batch, then a green Christmas tree, then a house, behind a window in the house, etc. 
29. Ready-made toys to dry 
30. Not only balls are made here, but also various three-dimensional toys. For example, such Fushi-Mice. They will also be invented, but inside a special form. 
31. Decorating a train. As for me, the balls are more beautiful and more elegant 
32. After the paint is applied, it is fixed by sprinkling with various materials. This creates the effect of rough snow from volumetric sparkles. 
33. Can you imagine the painstaking work? 
34. Stand with layout templates 
35. Workplace of the artist 
36. Half finished balls 
37. It's fun to look for various unusual labels among jars and bottles) 
38. Paint toys with acrylics 
39. Cutting and packaging area. Here the balls are circumcised - they cut off the extra leg 
40. Well, then the toys go to the store.
In the company store at the factory full house 
41. By the way, children can take a small master class where they will be taught to paint toys.
But it's not easy to get on it - there is a huge queue 
42. It's not for you to draw tanks on a notebook sheet) 
43. Add snow and voila! 
44. Final photo. How not to cut your own bow. 
Christmas decorations are presented on the modern market in an exceptionally wide range, most of them are created by stamping from plastic, products are supplied from different countries, mainly from China. However, there are traditional technologies for the production of Christmas decorations - moreover, they are actively practiced, allowing you to create individual handmade items.
Factories work all year round, creating unique festive glassware. But how is work in such industries, how do people manage to create such beauty?
What are Christmas decorations made of?
Most industries willingly accept tourists, offer excursions, so it is not difficult to learn the secrets of production. Glass is used to make traditional toys for the New Year tree, special blanks are supplied to the factories, from which both balls and products of more complex shapes are then blown. Also, paints, various sparkles, additional materials for decoration are used in huge quantities. The manual labor of specialists, glassblowers and artists is also an important component of successful production. Almost only women work in such industries - it is believed that men simply do not have the patience to manually process each ball.
Christmas decorations - production process
The first step in creating any Christmas tree toy is the development of an artistic sketch. The images on the balls, the shape of the toys and other objects can be invented by the artist at his own discretion, and an order for a batch of products with certain images can also come from outside. Toys for Christmas trees are sometimes ordered in bulk - by various enterprises, individuals, because they can even be business gifts.
Making a glass Christmas tree toy is a delicate matter. Factory production of glass Christmas decorations in Russia began in 1848, when Prince Menshikov opened a glass factory in his estate Alexandrovo (now located in the city of Vysokovsk, Klinsky district). Initially, it produced dishes, pharmaceutical bottles, lamps. When the fashion came from Europe to Russia to decorate the Christmas tree with toys, the plant began to produce glass beads.
5 curious facts about the Russian Christmas tree decoration
Traditional Russian Christmas decoration - long glass beads (garlands)
Many mistakenly believe that the traditional Christmas tree decoration in Russia is a ball. But the history of glass Christmas decorations in Rus' begins with beads.
The peasants, having mastered the craft at the Menshikov factory, often made buttons, earrings and beads at home in a handicraft way. Such things were called "fluff".
Previously, Christmas decorations were made at home on a kerosene burner.
In the city archives of Klin, a document was found stating that in 1887, craftsman Yakov Ivanovich Vekshin, working at the glass factory of Prince Menshikov, learned the art of blowing beads. Then he left the factory and organized his own business.
Handicraft production was usually arranged in huts. To do this, each master kept a mug-burner with a diameter of 15 cm in the house. Tow was stuffed inside such a mug, making a wick out of it. Kerosene was poured down. Then they set fire to the tow. The fire was fanned with large furs.
Glass tubes for home production craftsmen had to buy from factories. The glass from which handicraftsmen blew ornaments was made from quartz sand. The melting temperature of such a tube was about 1710°C. Using a homemade kerosene burner, it was impossible to reach a high temperature. Therefore, the craftsmen did not get elegant toys and beads.
The first beads were like stones
Christmas garlands, which are made on modern enterprise, weigh almost nothing. The glass is so thin that it can crack if you squeeze the Christmas tree beads in your fist.
In the old days, the beads turned out to be heavy, with thick walls and jagged edges, which was due to the infusibility of glass at home. The garlands looked more like stones. And they rattled like pebbles thrown to the ground.
Therefore, the craft for the manufacture of beads was called pebble. It was almost impossible to break or scratch such products.
There is no educational institution in Russia where they teach to become master glassblowers
Most of the craftsmen who work at the plant are hereditary glassblowers. They received experience and skills from their fathers and mothers. This tradition originated in the 19th century and has continued to this day.
All those wishing to learn to be glassblowers are required to undergo training at the factory. The internship lasts six months, after which the new master starts making toys.
The largest toy blown by the craftsman at the Yolochka factory reaches a diameter of 11.5 cm, the smallest is 3 cm.
Toys are made in such a size that they look good on Christmas trees in a typical apartment. Too big balls are inconvenient to hang on a Christmas tree, so the factory does not produce them.
How to make a Christmas tree toy today
Today, the plant produces on average up to a million toys a year, which are distributed throughout Russia and neighboring countries. "Herringbone" refers to the enterprises of folk crafts, since many of the traditional craftsmanship technologies of the 19th century are still preserved here.
The manufacturing process of a modern Christmas tree toy can be divided into 5 main stages:
blowing
The toys are blown out of long glass tubes. The master holds the pipe by the “antennae”, heats it up, constantly rotating it over the fire of a gas burner. This is necessary so that the glass heats up evenly. The temperature in the flames reaches up to 1000°C. After the material becomes plastic (this is determined by eye), the master begins to blow into the tube. Depending on the strength of breathing, balls or other free-blown toys (mushrooms, nesting dolls, snowmen, tops) are obtained.
Molded toys (huts, chanterelles, bunnies and others) are more difficult to make. The master also warms up the pipe, and then, having waited for the right moment, puts plastic glass in a metal mold, closes it tightly and blows into the free end of the pipe. Glass is evenly distributed over the metal and takes the desired shape. This must be done very quickly, as the glass cools almost instantly.
The production is in complete darkness, the craftsmen work in headphones, as there is a constant noise from gas burners. All manipulations with glass are performed only with the help of fire and human breath.
The most difficult to manufacture are assembly toys (samovar, teapot). In them, you need to solder one glass piece to another with the help of fire.
Metallization
At the next stage of production, the toys are given a mirror finish. This process is called metallization. The blanks are put on a metal frame, foil is hung on top of it. Then all this is sent to a huge vacuum installation, similar to a barrel. Air is pumped out of the installation, after which current is passed through a thin tungsten wire. From this, the foil begins to melt, falls on a special evaporator and quickly turns into an aluminum mist. Literally in 20 seconds, the fog settles on the cold glass and evenly covers it with an aluminum film. More than 3,000 toys are metallized on one installation per day.
Mirrors are made the same way.
Coloring
The next step is coloring. The toy is dipped in paint or sprayed with paint through a special device.
Painting and packaging
After painting, the toy falls into the caring hands of the artist. In one day, a person paints an average of 60-80 toys. Acrylic, enamel and other paints are used for work. Artists apply traditional ornaments and patterns. Then the jewelry goes to the packing shop.
We thank Valentina Vasilievna Trynkina, the chief technologist of the enterprise, for her help in preparing the material, executive director Vladimir Simanovich, guides and general director exhibition complex"Klin Compound" Lyudmila Simanovich.
Photos provided by the communication center "Industry of Children's Goods".
