Karavaev, Ivan Petrovich

Born in 1846 in the village of Dymkovo , the city of Vyatka, in a family of seasonal plasterers. About the first years of his work, Ivan Petrovich recalled the following:

“Everything in our family, starting with my great-grandfather and ending with me, was plasterers. From the age of 12 I began to work on a par with adults and by the age of 16 I was already working on my own - I stood on the wall, made smooths and pulled the cornices. They didn’t matter: what they earned in the summer, then they ate during the winter. When I was already an 18-year-old guy, it occurred to me to make toys from alabaster. At first, I molded a few “streams” (birds) from clay and cast molds from plaster on them, and already began to make children's toys in molds. The toys came out very good. I painted them partially: in animals - ears, eyes and muzzles. The rest of the toys were left white ^[1] "

This craft, begun in 1840, brings Ivan Petrovich success ^[2] . He makes the first molds for casting on his own, based on clay figures, later he begins to use ready-made molds bought abroad ^[3] . He taught a new craft to his relatives - the brother of his wife K.I. Isupov and A.F. Pestov and I.S. Martynov, who were his sons-in-law. Men were engaged in the molding of products, and their wives (L. N. Isupova, A. I. Pestova) - painters ^[4] .

In 1888 was printed ^{[ where? ]} , a note entirely devoted to the plaster workshop of Karavaev, telling about the Dymkovo toy craft as a whole.

In 1890, at the Kazan Scientific and Industrial Exhibition, where a whole department of the Vyatka handicrafts was organized, Karavaev received a silver medal "for the correct manufacture of plaster genre figures and their excellent coloring." In addition to the works of Karavaev’s workshop, clay toys of three craftswomen were exhibited there: Natalya Antonovna Mikulina, Avdotya Andreevna Shvetsova and Agrafena Timofeevna Lazhenitsyna.

In 1894 he also received a medal from the Nizhny Novgorod Fair ^[3] .

After the revolution, they wanted to dispossess Karavaev, but the Vyatka artist Alexei Ivanovich Denshin writes a letter to Moscow, where he proves that Ivan Petrovich is engaged in independent artisanal activity and does not use hired labor ^{[3] [4]} . However, in books dedicated to the Dymkovo craftswoman Anna Afanasyevna Mezrina , who was taking off the outhouse of the Karavaevs, he is described as a classic fist - an exploiter ^{[5] [2]} .

Illiterate Karavaev in his life created up to 12,000 molds for casting various art and visual teaching aids from plaster. They included: types and races of various nationalities, artistic figures - "Rachel", "Rebekah", "Solomei", "Mephistopheles", "Hercules", busts of great scientists, poets, composers, Gogol and Gorky types, collections of pets , animals, birds, ornaments for drawing and much more ^[1] .

Grandchildren of Ivan Karavaev - Vasily and Vladimir Martynov made obelisks standing in various areas of the Kirov region . In particular, their work is a pedestal under the T-34 tank, standing on the October Avenue of the city of Kirov ^[3] .

The production started by Ivan Petrovich was continued first at the Zhdanovsky district industrial complex, and then at the Dymkovo branch of the Kirov toy factory. Some of Karaev’s works are currently exhibited in the museum of the Kirov toy factory “Vesna” ^[3] .