Roam through this toy shop in Bogorodskoye, Russia. You’ll see moving, wooden figurines taking tea around the table. Other wooden toy-people feed chickens.

Toymakers built the town’s first moving toy about 400 years ago. The toy, called the Blacksmiths, featured a person and a bear hitting an anvil with sledgehammers. You can still buy your own in the village. The Blacksmiths was the only moveable toy of its kind until the 19th century.

Valentina Degteryova is a museum guide in Bogorodskoye. “Since the middle of the 18th century, toys were carved in every garden of our village,” she says. “They were carved by families.” People passed the skill from generation to generation. The toymakers remained in the little town. Each family specialized in one type of toy: birds, animals, or people.

To make the toys, linden wood is harvested in late autumn or winter. Logs come to the factory. They wait in piles for drying. It takes two to six years for linden to dry.

Carvers use a “Bogorodsk knife” to smooth each sculpture’s surface. One toy can take between three hours to a whole week to complete.

People built a power plant in the village in 1974. After that, many residents moved from the village to apartment blocks. Some abandoned their carving skills. The factory once had 250 carvers. Now it has 18.

Anatolyevich Sapelov is 38 years old. He is the youngest carver left in the factory. His father was a carver too.

What toy would you ask Mr. Sapelov to make for you? “Often people bring sketches,” he says. Sometimes they want ballerinas. Sometimes they want a blacksmith. “People have very big imaginations,” he says.

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction. — Proverbs 1:8

Why? Parents can pass down skills and wisdom to their children, and sometimes hand-crafted goods have greater value than machine-made ones.