In a room devoted to the St. Petersburg period of Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak’s life, there is a carved wooden frame. It was brought from Manchuria by the theater director and playwright Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. He gave the frame to Mamin-Sibiryak, who was fond of Eastern culture.

Inside the frame, there is a portrait of 19-year-old Yelena Mamina, the writer’s daughter. The exhibit was donated to the collection of the house-museum by Boris Udintsev, Mamin-Sibiryak’s nephew.

The four-cornered frame is made of walnut and decorated with carved elements. In the upper part, there is a thematic picture that illustrates four exotic birds: two of them sit at the feeder, and the other two fly in the sky. There is a branch of a tree nearby. The ledge at the top is crowned by a half flower.

On the sides of the upper part two pheasants were carved, under them — two dragons and two goats. Fantastic fish are depicted next to them. In the center, there is another rectangular frame, which is highlighted by floral ornamentation and carvings in the form of scales.

Yelena Mamina was a sickly child and home-schooled at first. In 1908, she was sent to the eighth grade of a St. Petersburg gymnasium. Classmates knew her as Mamin-Sibiryak’s daughter.

Since childhood, Yelena Mamina was fond of creative activities: playing the piano, composing poems and drawing. The collection of the house-museum contains her watercolor “Country Yard in Pavlovsk”, as well as a notebook where she recorded her poetry.

Yelena Mamina died at the age of 22, in 1914. Along with her stepmother, Olga Guvale, she left a will: