Slideshow: The 2018 Russian Tea Party

Each year, when seniors read Russian novels as part of the seminar curriculum, Thomas Aquinas College’s Lithuanian librarian, Viltis Jatulis, hosts a soirée, like those portrayed in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The centerpiece for these gatherings, which take place in St. Bernardine of Siena Library, is an elegant vessel: a century-old Russian samovar.

The samovar — a copper urn used for heating water and serving tea — and its accoutrements come from St. Petersburg, where they were made in 1906. They are the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Shore, local ranchers who are members of the President’s Council. The Shores presented the samovar to the College in 1996, and Mrs. Jatulis has been using it to entertain seniors and their tutors ever since. The samovar sits on an ornate drop-leaf burl wood table, also a gift of the Shores, which is used each year at Commencement to hold the graduates’ diplomas.

This year’s Tea Party was held last Thursday night, in honor of the seniors’ discussion of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. To add to the festivities, many members of the Class of 2018 donned furs and Russian shawls.

Through the generosity of the Shores and the creativity of Mrs. Jatulis, the College’s students are given a taste — literally! — of the life and times described in two of the great novels they read as part of the College’s unique curriculum.