The shape itself of a casket frequently reminds us of an old Granny's chest or an ancient coffer previously seen in a museum. The imagination of the craftsmen using the inheritance of their ancestors knows no bounds.

Birch-tree, the symbol of a Russian landscape, gave a very unusual material to Vyatka craftsmen - curled birch-wood. Curled wood is an excrescence sometimes found on trunks, branches and roots of various trees. Special attention of craftsmen was attracted to curled birch-wood for its beauty and strength. The processing technology for curled birch-wood was developed in ancient times. A rough wooden excrescence in the hands of a craftsmen becomes an elegant bowl or a dipper with preserved natural inimitable pattern as if chiseled from a gold-colored and warm stone. Such utensils used to decorate the tables of great nobles, some of them would even be sent to the Tsar's.

However, the time had replaced the accent and at the beginning of the last century they started to use this precious material to manufacture snuff-boxes and small chests. Some of such things were exhibited at the First Manufacture exhibition in St. Petersburg and became even fashionable. Every craftsman tried to make things different from those made by their colleagues. This is why the shapes of snuff-boxes, smoking pipes, cigar holders and especially small chests were so varied.

In the last century "wooden automatics" was invented. Since then musical caskets and caskets with secrets have been considered to be the most valuable. Selling such a casket the craftsman also sells the secret of how with a few touches to open its secret hiding compartments.

Curled birch-wood processing skills have always been highly valued and inherited. Sons worked side by side with their fathers. Therefore, in spite of all the difficulties that fell to Russia's lot, in spite of all fashion whims the curled wood articles manufacture has never been devaluated. Moreover, it has become a starting point for the development of a whole chest industry. Caskets are made not only from curled birch-wood but also from nut-tree wood, beech-wood, juniper, the beauty of patterns of these woods being explicitly and expertly shown.

During the last few decades there appeared and has since prospered a whole new trend in production. It used a very simple material to decorate linden articles. Rye straws technology and craftsman's imagination turn the straw into a charming material. Slightly colored or uncolored, cut into squares, rhombuses, stripes or circles - it is used for inlay. Craftsmen decorated their products with straw ornaments as if making a golden lace. Such articles made by skillful hands draw our attention, calm our souls and fill them with tenderness.