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They must have loved their tea.
They probably couldn’t risk life without it. What if the new world didn’t have samovars? Their heavy, brass samovar, or self-brewer as it translates, is Russian tea kettle that was used by everyone from royalty to the peasant class in the 18th and 19th centuries. And not just in Russia. My maternal grandparents shlepped this bulky item, engraved with Russian writing that I can’t decipher, across the sea, when they emigrated from a village outside of Kiev in the Ukraine to Ellis Island and then on to Providence, Rhode Island in the first decade of the twentieth century. One can only assume that making and drinking tea was too much a part of daily life to leave to chance. What if there were no tea making devices in America? How would they make it through the day? I get it. That first cup of coffee in the morning is like air to me. And I’m fussy. Each time we travel, I consider packing my Nespresso Virtuo machine along with the milk frother. But since I try my best not to check luggage, I leave my coffee to chance.
Imagine what it meant to board a ship for the chance at building a brighter future. Sure, they’d survived the pogroms, where vicious mobs of Russian soldiers came barreling through on horseback, burning Jewish homes and raping women. But it was economic opportunity that drew my ancestors to pack up and leave. My grandfather and his two brothers were all kosher butchers, and they couldn’t all make a living in their little village. In Providence, Rhode Island, America, they’d heard, there were enough hungry Jews to support three kosher butchers. And, sure enough, all three opened butcher shops and each made a decent living.
The samovar was a fixture in my home growing up. We never actually used it; it was more of a yiddishe objet d’art. A modern American family of the fifties and then sixties, we used tea bags – such a luxury - from Swee-Touch-Nee. When the big black tin of tea bags with the gold lettering was finally emptied, my mom used it as a sugar container. She was practical. Tea was a drink for when our tummies were upset. Instant Maxwell House –decaf Sanka later in the day – were the adult beverages of choice in our home. The percolator was brought out for company, along with the matching sugar and creamer dispensers.
My grandparents’ samovar holds a place of honor in our home, more than one hundred years after and thousands of miles from where it arrived on American soil. The question remains, where will it find its next home?