ИСТИНА

Since the very beginning of its existence in Russia and until the end of the nineteenth century, tea was imported into the country from abroad. Initially called The Chinese Grass, it was mainly brought from China. The history of tea in Russia is the story of the produce of overseas countries that became the national symbol, an essential element of everyday life and a staple part of elite culture. 1. The tea triumph in Russia came about in the seventeenth century when tea was presented to the Russian tsar as a gift. A few decades later in 1698, the regular caravan trade between Russia and China commenced: 300 loaded camels arrived in Russia. The tea track was about 11,500 kilometres long and it took sixteen months to travel. At first, tea was available only for the elite but over centuries its consumption increased due to the import growth rate. By 1847 in Moscow there were more than one hundred specialised tea shops and trading points, while the number of places serving tea was more than three hundred. The German traveller and geographer Johann Georg Kohl wrote: “Russians are used to drinking tea in the morning and in the evening, as well as to saying “God, have mercy upon us”. 2. The original native Russian world of tea objects was beginning to form along with the growing volume of consumption: - the mass production of samovars was launched in the eighteenth century. Tula was where they were mainly made, the brand name Tulskiy Samovar came from the name of the city. The shape, size and décor of samovars varied greatly but their mechanism remained the same. In the second half of the nineteenth century samovars became the obligatory Russian homeware object for both rich and poor people. The samovar became the symbol of the Russian tea party; - from the eighteenth century onwards Russian porcelain factories were opened, there were already forty five of them by the middle of the nineteenth century. The most high-quality and varied objects were made at the Imperial Porcelain factory as well as at the private factories owned by Gardner, Popov, Kuznezov and others. 3. Genre art played an important role in promoting tea as a national drink in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century: it formed an easily recognisable visual image of the Russian tea party. There were a few distinguishing features of the tea party depiction in the Russian art: - a democratic approach to the choice of the main heroes of the canvases: these were not only representatives of the royal family or aristocracy but also merchants, city dwellers, peasants; - in comparison with other art schools, which illustrated tea parties solely as private and family rituals, Russian art used the topic to reflect ideas of social injustice, cruelty and the indifference of people towards each other; - the main tea party’s elements (samovar, a big tea pot, often – a saucer (used for drinking tea from it), pieces of sugar (Russians bite them when drinking tea) received recognition and were fixed; - loads of starters, main courses and deserts served with tea were depicted; - the personages at the tea table demonstrated ritual sedateness and gravity; - the folklore tradition of using bright colours in the pictures was notably increasing at the turn of the century.