Bast Shoe Ink Bottle – Russian

This is an ink bottle in the form of a bast shoe.

Bast shoes are shoes made primarily from bast — fiber taken from the bark of trees such as linden. They are a kind of basket, woven and fitted to the shape of a foot. Bast shoes are a traditional footwear of the forest areas of Northern Europe, formerly worn by poorer members of the Finnic peoples, Balts, Russians, and Belarusians. They were easy to manufacture, but not durable.