«Stinol» was a refrigerator brand manufactured at the plant of the same name in Lipetsk. The name is an acronym for «stal iz Novolipetska» («steel from Novolipetsk»), pointing to its origins at the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Combine (NLMK), which the plant was built on the foundations of.
The Stinol plant was founded in 1988. Construction began in 1989, and the facility formally opened on July 2, 1993. That means, at the time of the events in the novel, the plant had only just begun operating — one of the first successful joint ventures between new Russia and a Western partner, the Italian company Merloni (later renamed Indesit).
Stinol's first director was Alexander Naumovich Frudkin, who ran the plant from 1988 to 1995. Under his leadership, production of the first seven refrigerator models was set up.
The three-compartment Stinol refrigerator mentioned in the text was a novelty on the Russian market of the early 1990s. Models like it differed from standard two-compartment refrigerators by having an additional compartment with adjustable temperature control — a substantial improvement over Soviet-era refrigerators.
By 1996 the plant had reached its designed production capacity of one million household refrigerators and freezers a year, capturing about 40 percent of the Russian market. Stinol refrigerators quickly became popular thanks to their accessible price, modern design, and reliability. For many Russians of the time, buying one of these refrigerators was a sign of a certain level of prosperity and an aspiration toward a European standard of living.
The appearance of a Stinol refrigerator in the novel, set in 1993, reflects characteristic features of the period: people's eagerness to modernize their households, the emergence of new consumer possibilities, and, at the same time, the ongoing difficulties of furnishing a home (the missing kitchen table, as in the text, being a case in point).
During the 1998 financial crisis, Stinol's sales dropped sharply — from 92,000 to 15,000 units a month. The plant was later acquired by the international corporation Whirlpool, but the Stinol brand continued to exist, becoming one of the symbols of Russian industry in the 1990s.