T is for Tsarist Troop of Terracotta Tree Trinkets

I love these, they may be [quite?] modern, but they are so charming, and this is proper collecting of proper toy soldiers, sadly outside my budget, but I shot them before they had all gone, thanks to Adrian Little for that opportunity and let's look at them;

I don't know where Adrian got them from (and wouldn't ask, trade secrets are trade secrets!), but he did say one had broken which was unfortunate for him, but it means we know they are made of a very thin slip-cast terracotta, but fired beyond the 'composition' of the Spanish figures we looked at the other day, to a fine ceramic which rings just like glass decorations. They may be double-fired as the painted decoration - while fine - seems to be a glaze, but they are then dipped in a thick varnish so may only have been painted and covered?

The Cossack is supposed to hold something, a (wooden?) sabre? The chap on the far right is a Lancer (?) the other three are regular Russian infantry of different ranks or employments, I think; from the left - Officer, Line Infantry, Grenadier?

They are finally mounted on a wooden plinth which gives them the appearance of Central European nut-crackers, but obviously stylistically different, being accurate renditions of the uniforms worn by the Russian army in the Wellingtonian period!

For readers not familiar with the Wellingtonian period (I don't use the term as often as I used to), it is that period in history at the beginning of the C18th, when Lord's Wellington and Nelson ran around Egypt, the Iberian Peninsula and Belgium, or the nearby oceans, giving Frenchie a few good spankings, which he'd asked for, so that was nice! Sadly (and not for the only time) the Russians had to handle the eastern-end of the enterprise by themselves, a job they managed ably, with the aid of General Winter - not for the only time!

I didn't have a tape measure at Sandown Park, but you can see the figures are 140mm with a 10-mil slice of finest larch or birch (?) at one end. They have a loop at the other end which must be for hanging, and I know some of the nicest glass tree decorations come from the former Soviet Union (along with some pretty kitsch awfulness, but the same is true of any large amount of random decorations anywhere [TKMaxx yesterday!]; taste is a strange mistress!), so I assume these are tree decorations. Given there were other regiments/uniforms available; they must look stunning in numbers!