Stands approx. 20" tall to the top of the crown, the body is 9" in diameter. Weighs nearly 15 lbs. (nearly 7 kg). Capacity approx. 1.5 gallons (6 liters) of water. A samovar of this capacity would be a good choice for a tea house, a restaurant, or a large household in the habit of hosting large tea parties. The body and lid feature a number of stamped images of the medals which Batashev samovars won at various domestic and international exhibitions. The abbreviations ЗОЛ, СЕР or БРОН above each medal stand for "gold", "silver" and "bronze", respectively, signifying the 1st, 2nd or 3rd place of the award.

Batashev is perhaps the most widely-known brand of samovar-makers, but dig just a little deeper, and the question arises: which Batashev? The city of Tula in the second half of the 19th century had several samovar-making workshops or factories founded by a Batashev, a very common last name in Tula. In our case, the samovar was made at the factory of Egor Egorovich Batashev, son of Egor Ivanovich who founded the factory in 1856. By early 1870s, the factory manufactured about 4,000 samovars annually, selling them all over the Russian Empire. High quality of Egor Ivanovich's samovars earned him the bronze medal at the 1882 all-Russian Exhibition. With it came the privilege to put the state emblem, the double-headed eagle, on his product. It proudly occupies the center position among the awards, right above the faucet. Some of the medals are partially rubbed off, a side effect of repeated cleaning and polishing of the samovar back to its original silvery luster.

Batashev's sons, Egor and Mikhail inherited the samovar business, however, only Egor's name is stamped on this samovar as the factory's owner, so it looks like the brothers had parted ways.

The samovar appears to be in perfect working condition, "appears" being the key word because we did not test it for all the obvious reasons. However, all the important parts are in place except for the chimney (it would be a whole different order of rarity if the chimney were not missing). The valve of the faucet fits into the spout very snugly. The valve on the lid for regulating steam release is in perfect working order. The Bakelite of the handles appears to be original and is still strong, lifting and carrying the samovar has not been a problem. The cinder trap door on the underside of the base also appears to be original, and works fine. The central rod in the right-side handle is a replacement, not impacting the functionality of the handle.

The world-famous Batashev brand is inseparably tied with the Russian city of Tula about 120 miles north of Moscow. Its main claim to fame for the last two centuries has been weaponry and munitions production (yes, Kalashnikov assault rifles are made in Tula). But the city is equally famous for its samovars. As the old Russian adage goes, "you don't go to Tula with your own samovar."

Please note that the podstakannik in our photo is for size reference only.