“Day faded; on the table, glowing,
the samovar of evening boiled,
and warmed the Chinese teapot;
flowing beneath it, vapor wreathed and coiled.”
(Alexander Pushkin from “Eugene Onegin”)

These lines from the poem by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin involuntarily come to mind when looking at the charcoal and wood samovars displayed in the museum.

The samovar has become a symbol of Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Friends and family used this iconic item of home life to prepare tea, and tea drinking has become one of the most characteristic Russian habits shared by all social classes.

A samovar is a specially designed device for boiling water and making tea. Unlike modern, largely impersonal hot water appliances, each of the samovars was unique in its own way. Despite the common design, samovars came in various shapes and sizes; they could be decorated or have maker’s marks.

The charcoal samovar from the museum’s collection is conical-shaped. It was produced by the partnership of the Tula samovar factory of the heirs of V.S. Batashev.

The conical body of the samovar is elongated. It has three-column edges, four medallions in the form of an elongated irregular oval, with an interception in the upper part, turning into a round, multi-stage pallet with four scroll legs. In the upper part of the body, there is a circle in the form of a cast ring, which serves as a support for the lid. The side of the ring is decorated with a dense pattern in the form of miniature hemispheres. Inside the body, there is a fire grate for placing fuel — coal, with a figured grate in the lower part. In the upper part of the body, there are two fixed handles with a figured frame and corrugated wooden handles with a protrusion in the middle part. In the lower part of the body, there is a faceted plate — the basis for attaching a figured faucet spout.

The faucet is faceted, elongated, with a thickening towards the end and a figured spout. The lid is round, multi-stage, with a round hole in the center, equal in diameter to the pipe of the fire grate located inside. On the lid, there is an air vent for releasing steam after the samovar boils. It has an oblong lid with an elongated miniature handle. On the lid, there are two handles with metal hollow cylinders. On one of the handles, there is a wooden holder — a cone in the shape of a barrel. A burner with three groups of triple openwork holes for placing a teapot is put on the pipe at the end of the lid.

On the cover, there is a hallmark: the image of a double-headed eagle — a proof of the high status of the company’s products at one of the Russian trade and industrial exhibitions.

Наименование: Batashev samovar
Дата создания: the late 19th — early 20th century
Техника: copper, steel, wood, casting, chasing, tinning, turning, assembling, factory made
Размеры: 48×34×33 cm
Правообладатель изображений: Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve
Коллекция: Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve
Место создания: Tula, the Russian Empire

“A hot samovar hissed comfortably on a clean tablecloth in the dining room…” (N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky). The samovar is a symbol of home comfort and family hearth.

“A samovar is a water-heating vessel for tea, mostly made of copper, with a chimney and a fire grate inside” (V.I. Dal, “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language”). Indeed, initially the water in the samovar was heated by an internal furnace in the form of a tall tube filled with charcoal. Such samovars were called charcoal or wood samovars. A samovar of this type is on display at the Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve.

This charcoal and wood samovar is faceted and turnip-shaped. It was produced by the factory of Nikolay Alekseevich Vorontsov. Instead of mass production, the merchant Vorontsov chose to produce elite samovars designed to satisfy the refined tastes of the aristocracy and nobility. In the middle of the 19th century, Vorontsov’s products were the leaders of the samovar market in Russia.

The body of the samovar is rounded and turnip-shaped. It has eight oval facets, which connect at the top and extend into a round, multi-stage tray with four scroll legs at the bottom. Inside the body there is a fire grate for coal with an openwork lattice in the lower part and a movable flat round lid with a handle. In the upper part of the body, there are two fixed handles with a figured frame and wooden handles. In the lower part of the body, there is a multifaceted lock insert for attaching a figured faucet. The elongated faucet flares towards the end and has a locking rotary key (screw). In the upper part of the body, there is a circle in the form of a cast ring, which serves as a support for the lid. The side of the ring is decorated with a convex pattern in the form of rounded protrusions. The lid is round, multi-stage, with a hole in the center, equal in diameter to the pipe of the fire grate located inside, and an air vent (smoke, steamer) to release steam after the samovar boils. There are two handles on the lid. The top of the samovar is crowned with a round flat ring with a burner and a cap. At the transition from the body to the tray, there is a round neck in the form of an openwork lattice, through which air enters the fire grate to maintain the combustion process.

Наименование: Vorontsov samovar
Дата создания: the last quarter of the 19th century
Техника: brass, steel, wood, casting, chasing, turning, tinning, assembling
Размеры: 51×38×40 cm
Правообладатель изображений: Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve
Коллекция: Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve
Место создания: Tula, the Russian Empire

Special samovar trays were one of the main accessories for tea drinking in Russia. A samovar was put on the tray, which prevented damage from sparks of hot coals so that the table surface remained intact. A samovar tray was used to bring the drip bowl necessary for tea drinking — it was used to collect water droplets from the samovar faucet and wash glasses, tea cups and other items.

A samovar tray produced by the partnership of Kolchugin’s factories is presented in the interior of the “Trading Shop”. Alexander Grigoryevich Kolchugin, a merchant of the 2nd guild, founded a copper and brass factory in the Vladimir governorate in 1876. The workers’ settlement, which arose around the enterprise under construction, was named after him — Kolchugino (now it is the city of Kolchugino, Vladimir Oblast). The factory’s products had a wide range, including samovars and samovar accessories. This enterprise exists today as a modernized factory.

According to the classification generally accepted at that time, the tray in the form of a horseshoe (bullet) was small and was intended to accommodate a small-capacity samovar. On the front surface of the item, at the bottom, there are factory marks, including “No. 1”. Numbers on samovar accessories depended on their type, shape and size. The samovar was put at the straight edge of the tray, the drip bowl — at the semicircular one. The high edge of the tray around the entire perimeter of the object, is rounded outwards.

Near the lower border of the product, there are factory marks: a pair of the Great State Emblems in the form of a double-headed eagle with the dates “1882” and “1896”. During those years, All-Russian art and industrial exhibitions were held in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, at which the presented products of the Kolchugin partnership were awarded the highest state award for quality, which gave the laureates the honorary right to feature an exact copy of the Russian coat of arms on their products. For mass consumers, the Great State Emblem on the product signified product quality. Above the coats of arms, there is an inscription in two semi-ovals “Kolchugin’s Partnership”.

Наименование: Samovar tray
Дата создания: the late 19th century
Техника: casting, forging, chasing, nickel plating, factory made
Размеры: 22,7×40,2×1,8 cm
Правообладатель изображений: Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve
Коллекция: Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve
Место создания: Vladimir Governorate, the Russian Empire