Samovar

Group:
Metal container used to heat water
Metal container used to heat water
Story pending

My great grandmother and her two sisters fled religious persecution in Ukraine in 1907 and traveled to America. They brought their clothes, almost no money, and a couple possessions, one of which was a samovar. They came from a city in the Ukraine called Kremenchuk and traveled on a boat, landing on Ellis Island. A samovar is an object made of brass with some ornamentation, that is used to heat water for tea. This samovar has been in my family since my great grandmother’s arrival and when she died in 1990, my grandfather took possession of it. It is important to my family because it is the only object that we have that came from the Ukraine with my great grandmother. My great grandmother (my mother’s paternal grandmother) was an incredibly loved person and very special to my mother. She lived a life that spanned from a tenement on the lower east side to a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, in between living in Brooklyn, and in Queens. The object is significant to Eastern European culture in that it was central for socializing and would offer a gathering point, as people gathered for tea. It was thought that the moaning sounds that each samovar makes is speaking to you, and I can see how some of the mystical and superstitious ways that my mother describes her grandmother relate to that idea. I love knowing that we have this object which must have meant so much to the family if they carried it on their long journey traveling to unknowns from the Ukraine to New York City at the turn of the century. 

Place(s): Ukraine, New York City
Year: 1907

– Nathan Buckley

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more