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# Gifts in world culture from ancient gift exchange systems to the presents of literary heroes
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/chto-luchshe-podarit-liubimoi-zuby-kashalota-baraniu-nogu-nemnozhko-zolota-ili-buket-tiulpanov-po-starinke/
- Published: 2021-03-05T06:50:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:03:51.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: In the Press, Books, Mores, Ethnography, Humour

What is better to give one's beloved: sperm whale teeth, a leg of lamb, a little gold, or a bouquet of tulips in the old-fashioned way? In the pre-holiday [Kommersant](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4701905?ref=theparnassian.com) Style supplement I have mused on the place of gifts in the annals of world culture. For an author there can be no better present than good readers. But where a lady is concerned, one must be rather more careful. Let us think together about how the people of antiquity found their way around intricate systems of gift-giving and how this came to be reflected in our culture; how hard it was in the distant past to make sense of what a gift meant and to grasp what was expected in return; what literary heroes gave one another, and why, and what a dish of French cuisine has to do with it all. I hope I have made my own contribution to the general confusion over presents.