Among the things that belonged to the artist and professor of the Academy of Arts Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin, there is an officer’s campaign bed. The Museum of Saint Petersburg Avant-garde also exhibits a photograph that depicts the artist’s wife Elena Henrikhovna Guro resting on this folding bed in the open air.

In pre-revolutionary Russia, such beds were part of the field equipment of the military. Mikhail Matyushin never served in the army but almost everyone could buy a folding bed back then.

A campaign bed consisted of removable bedding and a basic frame with wooden slats and metal plates, which folded like an accordion. The wooden slats were arranged crosswise, and they had hooks in the upper section to fix the bedding.

The bedding was usually made of khaki-colored sailcloth and was flanked by wooden rails with metal clamps for fastening it to the frame. Such beds also had an adjustable headboard.

A bed like this weighed nine kilograms, and its size when folded was only 68×16×14 centimeters. The design of a folding bed reduced the risk of getting head lice in the field, as the insects had nowhere to hide and hatch. The bed was assembled in a matter of minutes.

The bed of this design was invented by the Russian army officer Mikhail Yefimovich Grum-Grzhimailo (1861–1921), who was also a traveler, a member of the Russian Geographic Society and an expert in military equipment.

He participated in all expeditions of his brother and the famous explorer of Central Asia — Grigory Yefimovich Grum-Grzhimailo. Together, the two of them traveled through the Pamir Mountains, the Eastern Tien Shan, Tibet, and the Aral–Caspian Depression.

Apart from the campaign bed, Mikhail Grum-Grzhimailo also designed tools that improved shooting accuracy, pack suitcases, a sleeping bag, and a 150-kilogram field kitchen which allowed for food to be cooked on the move without the risk of burning the horse.