As family legend has it, the travel secretaire displayed in the Manor House of the Karabikha estate was taken frequently by Nikolay Nekrasov on his hunting trips.

The folded secretaire is a rectangular box with a hinged lid, brass corners and side handles. The lid folds back by means of metal brackets. The tablet under the hinged board is secured by hinges and brass latches. The drawer unfolds into two parts. One part has a removable inner drawer with numerous compartments for stationery. The secretaire locks with an internal metal lock.

During his travels the poet noted down vivid events, impressions and stories of peasants and then used them in his works. Thus, the basis of the poem “Korobeiniki” was a story told by his friend and hunter Gavrila Yakovlevich Zakharov.

Once during a hunt Nikolay Alexeyevich shot a snipe, and Gavrila shot another, but Nekrasov did not hear the second shot and was greatly surprised to see the dog carrying two birds at once. In return, Gavrila Yakovlevich told a story about two “snipes” that “got killed by one hunter”.

This incident really happened in the neighboring Miskovskaya volost of Kostroma governorate. The hunter who hit the “snipes” was “Davyd Petrov from the village of Sukhorukovo”. He met two traveling peddlers in his village who were on their way to Zakobyakino, Yaroslavl governorate, and decided to kill them in order to take their money. He followed them into the woods and attacked them. At the moment of the murder, shots and screams were heard by a shepherd from the same village. Davyd Petrov dragged one body onto a tree and hid the other under the roots. A while later, the murdered were found, but no one knew who had committed the crime. Davyd became rich and began to build up his house. People began to figure out where the money had come from. Gavrila Yakovlevich and the shepherd found out from Davyd how he had killed the peddlers.

At the end of August 1861 the work on the poem “Korobeiniki” was completed. The poem opened with a dedication,