Sofia Petrovna's beloved son, Kolya, buys her a 'little tea service' for her birthday. Because of her per-Revolution background and taste, she doesn't really like the pattern - "sort of squares, red and yellow" - and "would have preferred flowers". The set could be something similar to this, designed in 1930 by Nikolai Suetin (1897-1954), a leading Suprematist artist and chief designer at the Lomonosov State Porcelain Factory (est.1744) in Leningrad. It's not quite propaganda porcelain, but this early abstract art movement based on ‘non objective’ geometric shapes in alignment was state-approved.