The Russian Samovar Given Russia’s extreme climate, it is no
wonder the samovar caught on quickly; a large container full of
hot, steaming tea seems virtually essential to surviving the
long winters of the frozen tundra. The samovar began to replace
its predecessor, the brass teapot, sometime in the 18th century,
though the exact date and origin of the first models are
unknown. Despite extreme class discrepancies in tsarist Russia,
samovars were the point at which all of society met. Models
owned by the aristocracy were decorated in jewels and crafted
with silver and gold, while the poor had to band together to buy
a cheap brass model—yet everybody had to have one. Today the
samovar has become a symbol of Russian hospitality and
sociability as a central part of tea ceremony. Although they are
no longer used as widely as they once were, samovars remain a
quintessential object of Russian culture. Currently residing in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a rare and exceptional example
of a Samovar, dated to the la