The model of a cargo-passenger ship is fixed on a quadrangular wooden stand with two metal fixing rods. The ship has low sides, which taper into a flat bottom. The upper part of the sides is covered with dark paint, and the lower part is red, like the bottom itself. In the center of both sides are small red wheels with blades. The bow is pointed, the stern is rounded, the lower deck is made closed and low, and there is an open “gallery” on the bow.
There are numerous rectangular windows in the white-painted walls of the lower deck, and two large openings on each side with lattice fencing. The second deck is wide, flat and open, serving as a roof for the first. Its rear part has a ribbed surface and is painted gray. The front and middle part of the upper deck is brown and is surrounded by a low fence. Along the fence there are benches. In the center are variously shaped low covered superstructures in white and gray, as well as a thin low black chimney. The upper deck is cropped off above the bow, and a short mast is fixed to its edge, below it on the bow is a small bell and a black anchor. Another short mast is fixed to the stern. Above the wheels on the sides is the black inscription “OST”.
The steamer “Ost” was built in 1900 at the Sormovsky plant in Nizhny Novgorod. The length of the steel hull was 53.9 meters. Passenger capacity of the ship was up to 200 people. The speed was 14 km/h. In 1900, it was on one of the first voyages of the steamer “Ost” that Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), his mother and sister Anya traveled from Nizhny Novgorod to Ufa to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who was serving the last year of her exile. Lenin even mentions the ship in one of his letters to his mother.
In 1948, the steamship was renamed “General
Shaimuratov”, and after the navigation of 1961 it was decommissioned. Later,
the steamship was used in Bashkiria as a pioneer camp. Then it was decided to
make a memorial museum of Vladimir Lenin on board the former “Ost” and set the
steamship in Ufa. However, soon after the restoration was completed, the
steamship burned down at the factory.