The museum collection contains a rectangular metal cigarette case with a raised bas-relief of a Red Army soldier on the lid. The item features an engraving with lines from Arkady Petrovich Gaidar’s story “Chuk and Gek.” There is also a dedicatory inscription from the writer’s second wife, Lia Lazarevna Solomyanskaya, to Timur Arkadyevich Gaidar, their son.

The cigarette case was presented to Arkady Gaidar by the writer and screenwriter Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky in 1938–1939. Gaidar constantly carried it with him and only before leaving for the Southwestern Front in 1941 returned the cigarette case to its former owner.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky found Lia Solomyanskaya and returned the cigarette case to her. She passed it on to their son in memory of his deceased father and had the following engraving added, “To Timur Gaidar! Be happy, my son! Mama. December 8, 1947,” along with a quote from the story “Chuk and Gek”,

Timur Arkadyevich Gaidar donated the cigarette case to the museum collection in 1998.

When Paustovsky’s son fell ill, Gaidar contacted all his acquaintances and found the necessary medicine for the boy.