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# A cast-bronze Olenin samovar of the early nineteenth century, with a tap in the form of an eagle's head
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/litoi-bronzovyi-samovar-oleninykh-nachala-xix-veka-s-kranikom-v-forme-orlinoi-golovy/
- Published: 2025-01-06T12:54:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:31:31.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Aristocracy, Moscow, Museums, Mores, Saint Petersburg

The samovar belonged to Alexey Nikolayevich Olenin, President of the Academy of Arts and Director of the Imperial Public Library, whose salon was among the most brilliant in Saint Petersburg. Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin entered Olenin's salon straight from the Lyceum; here he made the acquaintance of Gnedich and Bestuzhev-Ryumin, and mixed with Zhukovsky, Krylov, Griboyedov, Glinka and Mickiewicz.

After the crushing of the Decembrists, however, Olenin and Pushkin found themselves on opposite sides. The former was a member of the State Council, and it is known that he signed the protocol establishing secret surveillance of Pushkin in the summer of 1828.

Pushkin courted Alexander Nikolayevich's daughter Anna, a maid of honour, but was refused. The reasons? The difference in age, slender means, the reputation of an idle rake, a scandalous position, police surveillance and, strange as it may seem, his appearance, which Olenina described with considerable severity: “God did not endow him with an attractive exterior. Dreadful side-whiskers, dishevelled hair, nails like claws, small stature, affectation in his manners, a bold gaze at women and boundless self-love.”

Her parents turned down such a suitor, and from then on his contact with the Olenin family became rare and incidental. In Olenina's album Pushkin left the famous lines “I loved you once”.

As for the samovar, which is kept at the Pushkin Museum on Prechistenka, its card states that the tap, from which Pushkin drank his tea, was soldered shut after the poet's death. Most touching, considering the decade without any particular contact with Pushkin. But memory is a wilful thing: the capricious beauty Olenina likewise cherished warm recollections of the failed romance to the end of her days, although it was she herself who had shown him the door.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_14823@06-01-2025_15-54-39.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_14824@06-01-2025_15-54-39.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_14825@06-01-2025_15-54-39.jpg)