Dolls and costumes made by ILS teacher Olga Lukinets, who is also an artist and modeler, as well as a fashion historian, are well known outside of Russia and are often ordered as gifts for foreign visitors by many Primorye organizations, including ILS.

“My first customer was a well-known philanthropist and co-owner of the cafés Nostalgia and Dushechka, Tatyana Vavilova,” explains Olga Lukinets. “Over the past 10 years, I have made more than 100 dolls and costumes from Russian historical regions for her personal collection.”

Olga Lukinets has been working at ILS since its founding, with students from the fifth to eighth grades attending her lessons on the history and creation of Russian costumes.

“Today, you find most examples of Russian costume in museum collections that are not available for general viewing,” notes Olga Lukinets. “We created the Boyarushka studio to popularize Russian folk culture among schoolchildren. At our studio, the children study and create hats and various other elements of Russian costume, including dolls in costumes from the 7th-9th centuries in different provinces of Russia.”

Olga Lukinets is not only a master of Russian costume design, but also a talented decorator, who has created stage decorations for the Pacific Fusion International Children's Jazz Festival, as well as ILS graduation ceremonies, school performances and holiday concerts.

“We are very pleased to be working with Olga Lukinets, a very creative person, whose activities go far beyond her primary specialty,” says ILS Principal Olga Shevchenko. “Whether it’s master classes on the history of Russian costume for our foreign partners from Japan, Korea, and China or decorating the auditorium and stage for many different school festivals and even the school halls, Olga Lukinets does everything with great inspiration. We hope that her TV exposure will acquaint even more people with her work.”