Before the invention of its granulated and refined varieties, sugar was sold in large blocks all over the world. They weighed between one pound and one pood, and crushing such a block required tongs and special guillotines. In the house, where the academician Ivan Petrovich Pavlov grew up, a sugar guillotine was stored in the sideboard, and only the father Pyotr could use it. The children did not have enough strength to crush a sugar block into pieces, but they were allowed to pick up sugar crumbs from a wooden box where a guillotine was fixed.

The poet and satirist Sergey Gorny was 30 years younger than Ivan Pavlov, but his recollections are very similar to the description of life in the Pavlov house,

The guillotine for crushing sugar used the same principle as scissors. The two blades were mounted on a wooden base with low ledges that prevented sugar crumbs from falling to the floor. One serrated blade was 22 cm long and remained motionless, while the other, twice as long and with a wooden handle, had a fixed angle and could be moved. Its blade was sharpened on both sides. It was the upper knife that went down and crushed sugar into pieces.

In 19th-century Russia, sugar was a precious commodity, so during the tea ceremony, it was consumed frugally. Russians had many words to describe the various ways of eating sugar: it was taken together with tea, or after it, licked or combined with other foods. Nikolay Leykin, a Saint Petersburg writer and publisher of Anton Chekhov’s short stories, wrote about his childhood years,

Father Pyotr Pavlov could also ask such a question when his children came to confession.