Eleven years ago I took a blank nesting doll, stared at it

for a couple minutes and saw no more a Russian maiden in this piece of linden wood but some bizzare creatures hidden inside. Tilt it a bit. Can you see a frog? Lay it down. Can you see an elephant? Or space shuttle? Lay it on a stand. Man, it's a submarine!

What submarine that has a crew of four inside would you think about? No doubt, the Yellow Submarine and the four Beatles inside -- that naturally came to my head! So the Yellow Submarine nesting doll was born.

That time one could find nesting dolls of any kind at the Russian market: Lenin, Clinton, Beatles, Chicago Bulls... Long story short, but recently the nesting doll maker Golden Cockerel received a Cease and Desist letter from the Beatles agent, and, with respect to the law, we stopped making and selling this nesting doll. I guess, our annual sales of this item would not cover the minimum royalty...

But what to do about the shape? I still have blank wooden submarines with four nesting fellows inside. How would I paint them? Paint a pink submarine and put on diving masks with snorkels on Beatles so no one recognize them? :) When the Russian submarine named "Kursk" sank in the Barentz Sea one of our artists painted a memorable nesting doll: it was a really sad one :(

Maybe Jules Vern's books are public domain and we can paint Nautilus and Captain Nemo's team? Decisions, decisions....