How were samovars manufactured?

Production of samovar is a painstaking process with different artisans involved: benders of copper lists, tinkers, turners, locksmiths, adjusters and cleaners. Artisans in villages produced parts, brought them to factories where samovars were assembled.

Whole villages were producing samovar’s parts for all the year, except summer, when people did farm works.

At first samovars were made from the red (clean) and green copper, Melchior, later less expensive alloys were chosen such as brass. There were samovars made from precious metals – gold and silver. Shapes of samovar varied greatly, in Tula alone there were more than 150 types.

As time passed so many different factories producing samovars had appeared that in order to identify the manufacturer they started putting stamps on lids, unique for each factory. It has become something like a trademark, which helped to identify the manufacturer.