Objects as Time Machines: Why I Keep What Others Threw Away
By Yaroslav — historian, collector, and someone who grew up in a small Russian town in the 2000s
December 2006: The Set I Almost Missed
December 2006. I'm walking home from my art class at the local music school, trudging through the snow in Pokhvistnevo - a small town in the Samara region of Russia, about 150 kilometres from the city. I stop at the Magnit supermarket, and there they are: official, licensed Bionicle canisters sitting right on the shelf.
In a town like Pokhvistnevo, this was a big deal. Magnit was literally the only store in the entire town that ever stocked official Lego sets. They appeared rarely, sold out fast, and I knew it. I had less than a day to make my move.
Standing there between Nokama, Nuju, and Whenua - I chose him. Toa Hordika Matau. The set cost around 500 rubles (roughly $15 back then). My grandmother bought it on the spot, but with one condition: it was a New Year's gift, and I had to wait more than two weeks to open it.
I still remember every detail of that day. The grey December sky, the snow, the quiet pre-holiday bustle of a small Russian town with its simple but somehow charming decorations. The Magnit store - our one little window into the world of official Lego. And my first genuine Lego Bionicle set, waiting under the tree.
Twenty years later, I pick up my battered Toa Hordika Matau and I'm right back there. Not as a memory I have to work to recall - it just arrives. The smell, the light, the feeling of that carefree winter day in a provincial Russian town.
How does that work?
Why the 2005 Bionicle Line Was Something Special
The set came out in 2005 - a year when the world was obsessed with Revenge of the Sith, blasting Linkin Park, and collectively asking: "Why did our favourite heroes have to become monsters?" Toa Hordika Matau is one of the symbols of that strange, dark, transitional moment.
Lego itself was going through a transformation. In 2005, they started pushing darker colour palettes - Dark Green for Matau, Dark Red for Vakama - moving away from the bright, cheerful tones of earlier years. To boost sales, every set came with a new play feature: the Rhotuka launching discs. It was their answer to the Beyblade craze and the general appetite for competitive toys.
The 2005 storyline - Web of Shadows - was the darkest chapter in Bionicle's history. The futuristic city of Metru Nui lies in ruins, wrapped in the webs of the Visorak horde. And the heroes themselves changed: the word Hordika means "half-beast." The Toa weren't just physically transformed - they were losing their minds. It was a story about the struggle against primal instincts.
For Toa Matau - always the funny one, the reckless pilot of the team - the transformation was a personal catastrophe. He lost his sleek aerodynamic shape, his confidence, and for a time, his faith in Vakama's leadership. In 2005, Bionicle stopped being a straightforward tale of robot heroes and became something closer to a psychological thriller.
Toa Hordika Matau could only have existed in that particular moment. Mid-2000s culture was obsessed with "dark and gritty." The Hordika aesthetic - asymmetry, mutated limbs, one arm replaced by a tool - fit perfectly alongside films like Underworld and the visual language of The Matrix. Hordika Vakama, who betrays his team that season, is basically the Anakin Skywalker of the Lego universe (with a happier ending, thankfully).
Interestingly, the 2005 line isn't particularly beloved in the collector community - Hordika and Visorak sets are often considered among the weakest, and secondary market prices reflect that. But for me, Toa Hordika Matau stands alongside Toa Mata Tahu as a personal symbol of the whole franchise.
What a Historian Sees in a Toy
Later on, when I studied history at Samara University and completed my postgraduate degree, I came across the work of historians who dedicated themselves to studying "historical memory." And I realised: what I feel when I hold an old set isn't just nostalgia. It's a well-documented phenomenon.
Historical memory isn't a textbook full of dates. It's how we feel the past - how it lives inside us collectively. If history is "what actually happened," then historical memory is "what we think about it and why it still makes us happy or hurts."
Maurice Halbwachs argued that memory is always social. We don't remember anything in a vacuum - we need others to confirm our recollections. When I remember buying that set, I'm really remembering the whole structure of my life back then: who gave me the money, who was with me in the store, whether it was a reward or just a gift.
Through Toa Matau, I remember my relationship with my family during that time.
I remember how the collective consciousness of my friends - and the online Bionicle community - treated these sets almost like sacred objects. Buying one was an act of initiation. You became part of the group of owners. Historical memory is the glue that binds a generation, a nation, or even a group of Lego fans.
French historian Pierre Nora wrote that "sites of memory" (lieux de mémoire) emerge precisely because the living, everyday sense of the past - what he called milieux de mémoire - has irreversibly disappeared. December 2006 is exactly that kind of vanished environment. I can't smell that store anymore. I can't see those price tags on the shelves. I can't feel that carefree December afternoon. Toa Matau is the fragment I managed to pull out of that time.
Nora said we build archives and keep objects because we're afraid of amnesia. Toa Hordika Matau on my shelf is my personal archive. As long as it exists, so does the version of me who clutched that box with both hands. It's an attempt to stop the erosion of time through physical form.
It's not just a toy. It's a time capsule with the winter air of December 2006 sealed inside. And every time I look at it, I confirm something to myself: "I was there. I remember. I am that person."
Geek Culture as Folk History
Following Nora's logic, geek culture objects - Bionicle figures, Star Wars VHS tapes, old consoles - are classic lieux de mémoire. Toa Hordika Matau isn't just plastic. It's a snapshot of 2005's aesthetic. Encoded in its form are the technological capabilities of the era, Lego's marketing strategies, and the cultural obsession with dark biomechanical design.
For people my age, Bionicle is as significant a shared cultural touchstone as Soviet films or space exploration are for older generations. It's the "social framework" Halbwachs wrote about - the thing that lets a generation recognise its own members.
Historical memory today isn't only granite monuments. It's millions of private archives sitting on collectors' shelves. In that sense, geek culture is a folk history - written not in ink, but in Lego bricks.
One day I'll show this set to my son. When I do, I won't just be explaining how to build the combo model from two Toa sets. I'll be transmitting memory. I'll be telling him how we lived back then.
Why This Blog Exists
Cultures pass. Objects disappear. Buildings get demolished. Entire streets change beyond recognition. You can preserve a physical object by putting it on a shelf. You can't do the same with a place. That's why local history exists - and why blogs like this one do too.
"Tut Bylo" (Russian for "This Used to Be Here") is my way of keeping portals open. Writing about the things, places, and people that shaped a whole generation of kids who grew up in provincial Russia during the 2000s. About a geek culture that existed without the internet and without big stores. About Samara and the small towns around it.
