Response on Samovar: Spreading afar...

Samovar in Saransk, a Russian city located 630 km east of Moscow. Typical tea-time at home. (See Story 1)


Samovar "secretly" sent to Milan, Italy by a Russian samovar-lover, now teaching Russian language in the fashion city. (See Story 2)


After I posted my thoughts on samovar, I received photos of more samovars, not from websites but from real homes and real people. Russian friends whom I speak to are particularly concerned and started looking around for me, in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg, anywhere possible.

Story 1: Samovar from Saranck, Russia

Yuri is a Russian pal whom I have never met but have known for quite some time. He showed me his samovar through webcam and said that his family has not used it for a long time. I requested if he could take a picture of it.

But to my pleasant surprise, he not only took the trouble to clean it, to scrub it from years of neglect but to set up the table for the photo shoot. His little son Artem , who also appeared in the webcam with him sometimes, must be wondering why the samovar reappeared on the dinning table again.

He spoke to his brother Vladimir who lives in Moscow about the search for samovar, and they seriously discussed about where I could possibly find it.

Story 2: Samovar from Milan, Italy

My friend Elly, hails from Milan, ocassionally comes to Kaliningrad for studies, work and personal visit. This is her response, word for word:

"I read your blog this morning, you are right, Samovars are really beautiful! I am surprised Russians told you they do not value them much. Here in Italy, at my Russian course,we all like them.

The picture is from our last Christmas party, my Russian teacher took hers. She told us it is prohibited to export them, she got hers as wedding present from her brother."

I could imagine Elly's teacher must be very proud of her samovar, and what a beautiful ambassador of Russian culture this beautiful 'kettle' is.

With regards to taking samovar abroad, Yuri from Saranck took the trouble to ask related officials in Russia, their reply is that, as long as the consumer or seller could furnish a receipt to show the year the samovar is manufactured, proving it is not of antique category, all the rest of the samovars are good to fly all over the world!!

Elly will be coming to town next week, I cannot wait to see her again, and bring her to see the lonely samovar sitting in the shop! Maybe one more samovar will find its way to Milan!