The exhibition of the Vladimir Arseniev Museum of Far East History presents a two-leaved mahogany closet with solid double doors, decorated with carved posts and pediment. The closet once adorned the interiors of the house of the Briner family — business people and public figures from Vladivostok.

The head of the family, Jules Joseph (Juliy Ivanovich) Briner, was born in 1849 in the community of La Roche, located 30 miles southeast of Geneva, Switzerland, to a family of German Lutherans. In 1880, Briner came to Primorye. This is also the time when the company “Trade House Briner and Co” founded by him started its activity in Vladivostok. Later, he and the second guild merchant Andrey Nikolaevich Kuznetsov established a new company, which was engaged in stevedoring works in the port, i.e. unloading and loading of commercial vessels, and, a bit later, land deals in Vladivostok. He was engaged in the development of lead and zinc mines in Tetyukhe, and was one of the founders of the “Joint Stock Mining Company Tetyukhe”. The Briners had their own houses on Fyodorovskaya, Aleutskaya, Svetlanskaya, Vasilievskaya streets and a small house in the suburbs. After the Civil War, the sons and successors of Jules Briner — Boris and Felix — took care of the enterprise. However, in 1932 the family had to emigrate to China, where branches of their father’s firms were opened and where they could continue their work. Leaving Vladivostok, the family left the furniture to the domestic servants.

The closet was given to Praskovia Popko, a Polish housekeeper, who had taken a job at the house at the age of sixteen and had worked for the Briners for almost 20 years. The woman treated the gift with great reverence, and her grandchildren quickly adapted it to their needs. When moving into a new apartment, it was discovered that the closet did not fit the height of the room, and the top of the closet, the crown, was cut off. Later, when there was a fashion for wall units, the double-leaved closet was sawn in two and put on different sides of the sideboard.

In 2013, the closet belonging to the Briner family was presented to the museum by Praskovia Popko’s great-granddaughter Margarita Chupikova, whereupon it took its rightful place in the exhibition.