In the second hall of the main exhibition of the Sheltozero Veps Ethnographic Museum named after Rurik Petrovich Lonin, where the Veps hut is on display, the pride of every housewife is kept — a samovar. The samovar was donated to the museum by the first director of the museum and history teacher Alexander Pavlovich Maksimov (1931–1996).
The samovar was found by Alexander Pavlovich in the very village of Sheltozero, on Zarechnaya Street, in the ancient Veps house of the Kyargonen family. Olga Pavlovna Kyargonen (1910–1987), the last representative of this family, was an unmarried woman, had no children, was reputed to be a good seamstress and sewed to order for many years. After her death, the house was empty for some time, slowly collapsing, until distant relatives sold it.
The Veps were reputed to be tea drinkers. Tea in the old days was a rather expensive commodity, and the Veps, who loved this drink, often replaced it with chaga, a birch mushroom which was said to have healing properties. A large, beautiful, highly polished samovar spoke without words about the status of the family and the hostess of the house. At the end of the 19th century, good samovars were often given to daughters as dowries. The samovar received a place of honor on the women’s side of the table, next to the hostess, who was sitting at the table opposite the master of the house and pouring tea. The structure of a large patriarchal family assumed a strict hierarchical system of relationships, the movement within it depended on the gender, age and status of the person. The traditional attributes of female power were associated with the economic functions of the family.
