The first desks appeared in Europe in the 14th century. Elegant in France, durable and solid in Germany, highly artistic in Italy — they all served the same purpose of organizing space for working, including on creative writings.

A desk was usually more stable than a coffee table, toilet table or other types of tables. It had drawers and enough space for a person sitting at one side of the table. There were also desks for working while standing, the so-called stand-up desks.

For example, Pavel Petrovich Bazhov preferred to work on his tales standing up. It is a well-established fact that Bazhov created most of the tales of the collection “The Malachite box” at his standing desk.

In the Bazhov family, as well as among close friends and acquaintances who often visited the writer’s house, Pavel Petrovich’s ordinary wooden desk was called a “small” table. Accordingly, he sat at it to work, which was mentioned in the memoirs of his daughter:

“Knots for memory” are words and expressions that Pavel Petrovich selected from various sources in accordance with his linguistic taste and which he later also used in fairy tales.

The small desk was a permanent workplace, which Pavel Petrovich Bazhov used almost all his life, until 1949.

On his 70th birthday, he was presented with a large desk with a green tablecloth, but this luxurious piece of furniture served Bazhov for a very short time, less than two years. Now it stands in the center of the writer’s office in the House-Museum.