Home

Romance eBooks:

The Author

Wild Pet
Glorious Revenge
Twice Rescued

Historical Pages:

Medieval Pages
Viking Pages
Old Russia

Paperback

Privacy Policy

6.a. Birth of the Samovar?

"A Puzzling Archeological Find in the Foothills of the Caucasus", titles his article in Azerbaijan International (8.3) Autumn 2000, archeologist Tufan Akhundov who holds the degree of Candidate of History (Azerbaijan's equivalent to a Ph.D.). He works at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Azerbaijan's Academy of Sciences.

The Discovery

Here are his own words about the discovery of the oldest known samovar to date:

".... We discovered an ancient burial mound, 2m deep and shaped in a 3 x 5m rectangle. It held the remains of two humans, a cow, a sheep and 34 pots.

.... While we were examining the area, one of our team members called out: "Tufan muallim (Tufan teacher), Tufan muallim, I've found a samovar!" He pointed to a round object with a tube in the middle [something like an angel-food cake pan]. At first, I couldn't believe that it was a samovar. How could a samovar have been made in ancient times? But after we cleaned it, I noticed that the inside of the tube was sooty, as if smoke had passed through it. The outside of the object was covered with soot as well. It was obvious that the pot had been placed over a fire. After we restored it, I no longer had any doubts - this had to be a samovar.

.... Of course, the one we found didn't look exactly like a modern samovar. It didn't have a spigot near its base so that water could be drawn off. Instead, an ancient cook would have poured water from the top of the pot. We don't think that the samovar was used for preparing tea, since tea wasn't brought to the region until the Middle Ages. Perhaps it was used to make soup or broth, or for boiling water for herbed drinks.

Another difference between the designs of samovars now and then is that the bottom of today's samovar is closed. You place a burning coal inside the tube. The ancient one was designed to be placed over a fire. Today's samovars have three legs, but this ancient one didn't have any. Instead, people must have put stones underneath it and then built a fire in the center.

One clear advantage that this ancient samovar had over the other contemporary pots was that it was much more fuel-efficient. Since it was heated from below and inside, it would have needed relatively little wood or coal."

Also part of this article:
6.b. Other Rare Finds
6.c. Piecing it All Together


Or go back to revisit:

1. About the Samovar
2. Samovar Through History
3. Types of Samovars
4. Abbreviated history
5. Sbiten or Russian brew
6. Birth of the Samovar