English: The Vladimir Shukhov's Gift by Carl Faberge. The silver model of the World's First Hyperboloid Tower by the great Russian engineer and scientist Vladimir Shukhov (1853-1939) in 1896.

The Russian engineer and architect Vladimir Shukhov was the first in the world to invent and use in construction hyperboloid towers. Shukhov built his first example as a water tower (Hyperboloid structure) for the 1896 All-Russian Exposition. Subsequently, more have been designed by other architects, including Le Corbusier, Antoni Gaudí, Oscar Niemeyer, Ieoh Ming Pei and Lord Norman Foster.

After the exhibition had closed, the openwork tower of rare beauty was bought by the well-known Maecenas of that time Yury Nechaev-Maltsov and placed in his estate Polibino, Lipetsk Oblast, where it has preserved until now under the state protection. In the subsequent years, Vladimir Shukhov developed numerous structures of various lattice steel hyperboloids and used them in hundreds water towers, sea lighthouses, masts of warships and supports for power transmission lines.