The exhibition houses a mortar in the shape of a truncated cone flaring at the top and standing on a wide base. The pestle is solid, made of a copper-based alloy. Legend has it that these items belonged to the Chekhov family between the 1930s and the 1960s. They were donated to the museum by the widow of Sergey Chekhov, the writer’s nephew.

The mortar is an ancient tool used for crushing and grinding various ingredients, including salt, pepper, nuts, garlic, poppy seeds, and herbs. Small kitchen mortars are used for grinding coffee beans, making powdered sugar, crushing large salt crystals, and preparing sauces. Russian wooden potato mashers were also based on a principle similar to the mortar and pestle.

There are two types of mortars: mobile tabletop mortars and floor-standing mill mortars. Residents of Russian villages used wooden mortars, while citizens and wealthy peasants of the Russian North had metal mortars. The pestle and mortar are made of the same material — for example, bone, porcelain, glass, or stone.

In “Sakhalin Island”, Chekhov provided an inventory of medical supplies available to the convicts. It included only one mortar and even that one was cracked.