According to legend, this round table for three people, along with other furniture, was presented to the miners of the village of Kopi by Mikhail Kalinin, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee and the First Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1920, with the propaganda train ‘October Revolution’, he visited the Chelyabinsk Coal Mines. Kalinin presented valuable gifts to the most distinguished miners. Since then, a close connection has been established between him and the Kopeysk miners. When the only club in the village of Kopi burned down in 1929, the miners turned to Kalinin for old times’ sake and asked him to help build a new club. Instead of the new club, the all-union headman built the Palace of Culture for the miners and furnished it with furniture from former royal mansions and noble estates. This table and other furniture for a long time decorated the Palace of Culture.
Some of these old pieces of furniture have become exhibits of the Local History Museum of Kopeysk City District. They still have the metal tags of the Palace of Culture on them. The transferred furniture belongs to the period of historical retrospectivism of the second half of the 19th century. The furniture set looks massive. Animalistic motifs can be traced in the design of armchairs, chairs, and the table. Attention is drawn to the table legs with textured figures of hippos. Three predators with open mouths resemble Gothic gargoyles. It is noteworthy that images of hippos are not often found in furniture items.
The style of retrospectivism is a little-studied phenomenon in the history of Russian furniture of the 19th - 20th centuries. Contemporaries called such furniture “stylish”. It reflects all the famous styles and fashion trends ranging from the Gothic and Renaissance to the Baroque and Oriental motifs. This term denoted furniture items with easily recognizable signs of historical eras. Thus, in the interior, there were “Gothic” chairs, screens in the “Chinese style”, and chairs in the “Renaissance style”.
It is not known for certain where the furniture given to the miners was taken from. Presumably, the furniture set was stored in the Great Gatchina Palace. According to other versions, the furniture could stand in the Winter Palace, in the Mariinsky Palace, or in the Mansion of Prince Kochub.
Some of these old pieces of furniture have become exhibits of the Local History Museum of Kopeysk City District. They still have the metal tags of the Palace of Culture on them. The transferred furniture belongs to the period of historical retrospectivism of the second half of the 19th century. The furniture set looks massive. Animalistic motifs can be traced in the design of armchairs, chairs, and the table. Attention is drawn to the table legs with textured figures of hippos. Three predators with open mouths resemble Gothic gargoyles. It is noteworthy that images of hippos are not often found in furniture items.
The style of retrospectivism is a little-studied phenomenon in the history of Russian furniture of the 19th - 20th centuries. Contemporaries called such furniture “stylish”. It reflects all the famous styles and fashion trends ranging from the Gothic and Renaissance to the Baroque and Oriental motifs. This term denoted furniture items with easily recognizable signs of historical eras. Thus, in the interior, there were “Gothic” chairs, screens in the “Chinese style”, and chairs in the “Renaissance style”.
It is not known for certain where the furniture given to the miners was taken from. Presumably, the furniture set was stored in the Great Gatchina Palace. According to other versions, the furniture could stand in the Winter Palace, in the Mariinsky Palace, or in the Mansion of Prince Kochub.
