There is a small box next to a homemade breadboard in the room of Maria Ulyanova Sr. According to museum specialists, the Ulyanovs’ eldest son Alexander made it in the home carpentry workshop, which was located in the yard. Alexander cut out the box’s walls from walnut veneer with the hand jigsaw and assembled them to form a small chest with a flat lid. He decorated the item with a plant and geometric pattern.

Dmitry Ulyanov recalled about the home workshop:

Alexander made the box as a gift for his mother. Alexander was good with a hand jigsaw and other carpentry tools and often made wooden toys and carved small things for his family. One of the most suitable materials for home crafts at that time was walnut veneer — thin sheets of walnut wood. This type of wood was considered valuable; it was beautiful and quite strong.

In walnut wood, the fresh layer of wood that lies directly under the bark — the sapwood — is separated from the darker brown wood core by clear lines. That is why a peculiar striped pattern appears on the radial cut (i.e., perpendicular to the trunk surface). The varying shade of the wood core, combined with the patterns of the wood itself, gives items made of this material a complex, beautiful texture. In addition, walnut wood is a water-resistant wood that is easy to polish, paint, and lacquer.

According to experts, the exact date of this box creation is unknown. However, they believe that Alexander carved it in the 1880s. It was found in 1960 in a safe of the Kremlin apartment of Maria Ulyanova, Alexander’s sister, and was given to the museum. It came to the Lenin Memorial as an exhibit from the Moscow Central Museum of Vladimir Lenin in 1961.