Agree, the most pleasant thing in preparing for the New Year is not a table at all and not even gifts.
The feeling of a holiday overtakes us exactly at the moment when we decorate the main symbol of New Year's Eve - the Christmas tree.
We take out a green beauty from the closet or buy a live spruce, put it at the head of the room, decorate it with sparkling balls, wrap it with tinsel or light a multi-colored garland. From this moment the countdown begins - there are just a few days left until the New Year.
While everyone is just getting ready to start the New Year's fuss, there is time to buy gifts and decide where and with whom to spend this very night. And it's still too early to get the tree. But we know how fast time flies, right?
Journey to winter Lower it would not be truly winter if not for an excursion to a fairy-tale country, which I am going to tell you about now.
I managed to see with my own eyes how they make one of the main components new year holiday- a Christmas tree toy, and even feel like a little artist.
I have already been in a similar production, only not a Christmas decoration, but ceramics, and I can well imagine how the birth of such works of art as vases, plates, jugs, cups, souvenir figurines, etc. takes place. For many years I studied at a school with an artistic bias (Gzhel) and even have a certificate (consider the second profession after a journalist) as a painter. Although that's what kind of artist I am. Once, I wrote a long article about the production of Gzhel ceramics in a magazine near Moscow.
But I have never seen how glass is made, and even more so such a fragile thing as a Christmas tree toy! Everyone has heard of Gus-Khrustalny, Christmas decorations are made in Khimki, Klin, Pavlovsky Posad. The Nizhny Novgorod factory of Christmas decorations "Ariel" is one of such industries.
1. The factory meets with such romantic drawings on a concrete fence.
2. You can’t say that it’s a factory! The factory house is a museum, production begins where the "brick" is. 
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4. We went inside and everyone immediately took their breath away. Magic! Adults, like children, rushed to look at toys and take pictures in New Year's interiors. 
5. Herringbone on chicken legs 
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Toy Museum. From the past to the present.
The Toy Museum is a real journey into childhood. Soviet plastic Christmas trees, metallic retro toys, paper decorations and cotton wool snow.
10. The exposition of the museum consists of more than a thousand exhibits that have been collected over 20 years. However, the craft itself originated in Nizhny Novgorod in 1936. The factory "Ariel" continues the traditions of the Gorky fishing and cooperative artel "Children's Toy".
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13. Toys on clothespins, everyone had them! I still have a lot of old balls and figurines in my bins - for the new year we no longer hang them on the Christmas tree, it's a pity to break them. At home, the cat is now only soulless plastic on a green beauty :( 
14. Exactly the same houses! They tell the truth that in the USSR everything was the same for everyone. 
15. While everyone was looking at the balls, I hurried to buy souvenirs. Toys here cost an average of 200-300 rubles apiece, there are even a thousand. It’s expensive for someone, personally I didn’t feel sorry for the money for such beauty. 
16. A lot of rural motives. Russian village, folk tales. 
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18. Winter and the same summer landscapes. Very soulful. 
19. There is also a collection of such folk crafts as Gzhel. 
The Nizhny Novgorod Christmas tree decoration factory is the only one in Russia whose products are exported. To Europe, America, Canada and many other countries. What and in what technique they do not draw! And European landscapes and the Russian village, airplanes (ordered from Sukhoi) and oil rigs("Lukoil"), even Barack Obama was painted! Putin just has not been portrayed yet, not politically correct, they say.
20. At the factory, you can order any thematic batch of toys. By the new year, so many corporate and individual orders arrive that glassblowers and artists work 12 hours a day!
State orders are also coming. This is a patriotic collection of the "city of Russia".
21. And this is an order from the Moscow metro. Do you recognize the stations? 
22. Paveletskaya! 
Glassblowers. This is where the toy takes shape.
23. It's time to tell how such beauty is born. First, a long glass tube is heated over a gas burner and divided into blanks. Then these parts continue to heat up on fire, after which, the master "inflates" the ball from one end of the tube.
24. Such "chupa-chups" are obtained. Ready lollipops 
25. But first, the master carefully, under fire, removes one of the sticks. 
26. And here you can see the shape in which pimply balls are made. 
27. Like these 
Workshop. Here they draw the New Year.
A toy is not a toy unless an artist paints it. It's time to look into the workshop, where future jewelry is painted with watercolors, acrylics and sparkles.
28. The factory occupies the building of the former bus depot. This, apparently, was once a classroom, do you see posters on the walls?
Today it is a workshop where painters work. Only women, men do not have enough perseverance and patience.
The only representative of the stronger sex at Ariel is Arkady Tersinsky, the director of the factory.
29. Bloggers quickly filled the room, trying to grab a good shot. Poor artists! 
30. Each girl draws her story. Here is a Russian lady 
31. And here is a matryoshka. I know firsthand how difficult it is to outline with a black outline ready product. If only the hand did not tremble! 
32. Work environment. Brushes, paints, palettes, sponges and jars of water 
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34. They draw with watercolors and acrylics, there are also special contour paints that create a relief on the product. 
35. Kefir, even after death, also serves art 
36. Religious motives. christmas night 
37. Officers 
38. In full dress and in sparkles! 
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40. The gingerbread series at the factory has existed for more than a year. Very like! I bought two toys from this collection as a gift to my relatives. 
41. Lambs get a fur coat 
42. We remind you next year- the year of the sheep / goat (meaning 2015). My year by the way 
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44. Vases and candlesticks are also painted here. 
Chief by drawing
That was a craft, but who is the master? Lead Artist! It is he who comes up with every story that will be depicted on the toy this year. Each order, each picture for "Ariel" is drawn by Natalia Repina.
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46. Creative mess and fresh work. 
47. In the artist's office - examples of collections from different years. There, in the background - "the little prince", in the foreground - Russian and foreign landscapes.
On the first ball - Chkalov Stairs, Nizhny Novgorod. 
48. Natalya admitted that her favorite subjects are the landscapes of the Russian village. 
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51. The king is inspired by children's fairy tales. This is new for this season. 
52. And this unusual flower collection stands out from the rest of the toys. A completely different technique is the imposition of several layers of paint. 
Do you want to be an artist? Come on.
53. If you suddenly thought: "I could do it too, if I wanted to!" - it's easy to check. You can be an artist and paint yourself a souvenir as a keepsake. Acrylic paints, brushes and more!
54. Someone drew from pictures, someone grumbled that he couldn’t draw, some came out with real masterpieces. This was drawn by our tour guide. 
Christmas decorations are presented on modern market 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 Christmas tree, special blanks are supplied to the factories, from which both balls and more complex shapes. also in huge number paints, various sparkles, additional materials for decoration are used. Manual labor specialists, glassblowers and artists are 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.
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 peace.
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 kids different ages- from elementary school students 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 at first turn out transparent, like soap bubbles. 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 craftsmen in different years, as well as 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, Vladimir Putin presented balloons depicting the sights of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod 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.
In 1992, the factory of Christmas decorations "Ariel" was opened in Nizhny Novgorod. They are engaged in the manufacture of Christmas balls, candlesticks, medallions and even Easter eggs. The factory is a member of many international exhibitions and competitions. They managed to immediately draw attention to themselves in the Western market, so now the Nizhny Novgorod factory is one of two enterprises in Russia that export their products to other countries, including Germany, France, England, America, Italy, Switzerland, and Denmark.
About how Christmas decorations are made.
The process of making Christmas decorations begins with blowing. For this, medical glass is used:
From each such glass pipe, 2-3 blanks are obtained:
First, it is heated in the middle to separate into two parts:
Having received the desired piece, each pipe is heated from the inside so that the craftsmen can start blowing:
A Christmas decoration is blown out in one breath. Therefore, when you see a huge ball, know that it is made by a different technique. With the help of two antennae, the master shapes:
Depending on what kind of decoration should be obtained, a mold is selected. AT this case glassblower makes a "house":
One tendril is twisted into a small loop (mainly for the Western market), or left for further cutting, and the second is removed, leaving a unique mark on the bottom of the ball:
To make an ornament similar to an owl, a special tool is used, with which the glass of the ball is pressed through. In this way, her characteristic eyes are obtained:
For 6 hours, glassblowers blow 250-300 balls. There is nowhere to learn this, so all glassblowers, as in the old days, pass on their knowledge directly to the next generation:
Now only 4 glass blowers work at the factory. Workplace of one of them:
After blowing, the blanks go to the paint shop. Here a layer of varnish is applied, but then the decoration will be a little transparent (for a candlestick, for example), or another layer of aluminum is applied before that. Aluminum completely removes transparency and adds more shine:
The second mustache is cut off immediately:
The painting work is followed by the artistic, the most difficult, in my opinion:
The orders from the factory are different: from presidential gifts to balloons with metro stations. Almost all drawings are performed in several stages (at least 3-4). By the end of the work on these balls will appear:
For drawing, brushes, feathers, sponges and jars of sour cream are used.
There are about 4 times more master artists than glassblowers. Those who work longer in a factory perform more hard work, and the new ones are easier. But art education is compulsory:
Visual demonstration step by step. You should get a bullfinch:
Final decorative touches:
Most of the time decorations dry:
Toy from the latest collection:
This is what it looks like workplace graduated master artist:
There are also tours of the factory. This type of service is even in great demand! Now all the excursion time is scheduled until the end of January:
The completion of such an excursion is a master class on painting balls and figures:
Of course, you can take the result home to show off your work to your parents:
This is how Christmas decorations are made.
Klavdievskaya factory is one of the leading factories in former USSR, which were engaged in the production of New Year's decorations (besides it, the Yolochka factory in the city of Vysokovsk, Moscow region is the most famous). The factory was established in 1949 in the village of Klavdievo near Kyiv and was originally engaged in the production of various products from laboratory glass. In the 50s, it was redesigned and since that moment the factory has been producing Christmas decorations. For the most part, these are Christmas balls, but the factory is not limited to them and can produce glass decorations of a rather high complexity. In the Union, the factory occupied the 1st place both in terms of production volume and area (then the factory included two more enterprises in Kyiv - in Svyatoshyn and Podil). The productivity of all enterprises per day reached the volume of a covered freight car. Now there is only one enterprise left in the village of Klavdievo (it recently partially moved to the village of Lubyanka), which operates at 25% of the "union" capacity. In the old days, about 600 people worked at the factory, now only a tenth of them remain. Almost all jewelry (about 96%) is now exported (Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Great Britain, USA, etc.) and only 4% remain in Ukraine. 
Let's see how the factory and the process of making Christmas decorations looks like. Outwardly (and inside) the factory gives the impression of abandonment. Indeed, after the collapse of the USSR, for 5 years, everything that was taken out of the factory was taken out of the factory, and when it finally appeared new owner, I had to spend more than one year to restore working capacity at least to a minimum level. One of the shops: 
The first stage in the production of jewelry is the blowing of a ball or other jewelry from a glass tube approximately 1.5 m high. For various decorations, a glass tube of its own diameter and with its own wall thickness is used. Here is a pipe we are shown by the head of the board of the factory: 
Mechanized blowing is not held in high regard by customers: when the ball is cast, a seam from the mold remains, so the entire production process is manual. To begin with, the tube is heated over a gas burner, the temperature of which reaches 1,500 degrees, and pulled into long thin tubes at intervals from an intact tube of the original diameter: 
It turns out blanks for future decorations; where the tube was left of the original diameter, and balls will turn out: 
Next, the untouched gap is heated and a ball or other decoration is blown out: 
The subtlety of this work lies in the fact that the glassblower must draw exactly as much air into his lungs as is necessary to create a ball of the required diameter: 
In this case, the ball must be constantly rotated around its axis, otherwise the uncooled glass will simply sag: 
Despite the complexity of the process, glassblowers easily blow balls within a tolerance of 0.2 mm. When we were blown balls with a diameter of 80 mm: 
However, after each balloon is blown, it is checked on a special template: 
For a shift, the master can blow up to 200 balloons. And this is how the top for the Christmas tree, familiar to many, is born: 
The second stage is silvering. It is carried out using such a simple installation: containers with reagents and a bath of hot water 
Silver oxide, ammonia and distilled water are injected inside the jewelry in a certain proportion. 
A Christmas toy with this mixture is placed in hot water, a reaction occurs and the silver evaporates, fixing on the inner walls. The decoration is shaken several times so that the silver evenly spreads over the walls. Then the remaining water is poured out: 
The third stage is painting. 
Silver-plated balls are wiped with a cloth and dipped in paint. At the same time, its consistency is very important: if the paint is too thick, streaks will remain on the ball, if it is too liquid, gaps: 
The painted balls are sent to the oven where they dry under lamps. The rheostat regulates the voltage supplied to the lamps, and, accordingly, the temperature: 
Fourth stage - decoration. If it is not required, the ball can bypass this stage and immediately go to the trim. When designing, the artist puts the necessary drawing on the toy: 
Tiger drawing process: 
To apply a pattern of sequins to the ball, it is first applied with glue, and then the ball is sprinkled with sparkles: 
Finished tigers next to still unfinished brothers: 
Artists can apply a drawing for every taste: 
Each artist can paint from 50 to 100 balloons a day. 
The fifth stage is cutting off the tip left over from the glassblowers. Made using a diamond wheel: 
Fuck! The tip flies to the side: 
It remains only to put on the familiar caps with a loop: 
...and pack the toys: 
Finally, a few examples of the New Year's variety that the factory produces: 
By the way, when visiting the factory, you can immediately buy toys "at manufacturer's prices" and make an individual drawing. 
Until such decorations 