The guide has no right to pause.

- It all started with a planned museum practice at St Petersburg University, where I studied at the Faculty of Philology. My friend and I got to Pushkin Lyceum, for two weeks acted as spectators and listeners, and then received the task to prepare the tour. Each of us wrote a text that was helped by professional Methodists, and then we had to do a couple of groups. I was very clamped up at the time, shy of absolutely everything, and for me, performing even in front of a small audience was in some ways a feat. As a result, it was necessary to literally memorize the written text, since there could be no talk about improvisation - it was terrible.

- How long is the standard excursion in Lyceum?

- About 40 minutes, but you always pronounce the text longer than you read, as there are transitions from hall to hall, from exhibit to exhibit. The text itself is small – five pages. At first I was given a group of five people. When I went to them, everyone saw how complex I was. Thank goodness I was allowed to keep the coveted text behind my back and allowed to look into it. And although I never used this cheat sheet, the presence of it reassured. The second tour was easier: I not only spoke the text, but also managed to answer the questions of visitors. But after the second time I was told: "Two excursions - it's not serious: you will not feel or understand anything." Let's go for another three days.” As a result, I drove groups of 40-50 people, learned to enjoy the process and even grew up in my own eyes, because not everyone can work with large groups. For example, it is necessary to be able to explain with the help of tactful but unambiguous replicas so that tourists do not cover the walls, do not touch anything, do not make sudden movements.

- What prompted you to take a tour guide job?

- Next summer, I decided to make extra money, so I called the methodologists from Moika, 12, about a vacancy in the Lyceum. For a year, of course, everything was forgotten – I had to re-learn the text. But most importantly, I have already overcome my tightness. So I became a freelance tour guide. This season has been my fifth and I am completing my postgraduate studies.

- How is your tour guide different from your regular one?

- As a freelance student, I come to the Lyceum on call, and full-time employees work 5 days a week, from 10 to 17 hours, with a floating weekend. The first person who arrives in the morning receives the first group, the second group receives the second, and so on. I managed to run 5 groups a day and was exhausted terribly. All this time - on your feet, plus you need to speak clearly and clearly. At first, he even tore off his voice, but later learned some exercises to avoid torturing ligaments.

- Does that sound like an acting recitation?

- There are, of course, similar elements. It is important for the guide to speak loudly, expressively and preferably not “on the machine”, but in a human way, creating a sense of improvisation in the listeners. They don't know I'm saying the same thing.

- Is it hard to repeat the same thing dozens of times?

- In fact, a prepared excursion is always larger than the real one, it seems to be done with a reserve. For example, you are on a tour, and there is a large group in front of you. I think I’ve finished everything in my room – what should I do? You have to get out of the way, tell something longer, add some topics. And if someone follows you “like a locomotive”, then you need to wrap up quickly. The content of the tour also depends on the expression of people’s faces: for example, it is absolutely necessary to tell how Pushkin wrote his poem about a rose, and this is what he wrote. Something I don’t want, they’re boring. It is very difficult to lead groups of schoolchildren, but it is very joyful if you manage to “stir” them and they begin to ask questions.

- What education is required to work as a museum guide?

- Those who work in the Lyceum are mostly philological or historical. But at Moika 12, there are courses where people often come from the street. They are listened to, and at the end of the course they can prepare a tour and try to conduct it. If Methodists give good, then education does not matter.

- If it's not a secret, what do tour guides earn?

- The Lyceum is small (I receive a fee for each tour), but staffers on weekends almost all work on bus tours around the city and suburbs. And they pay very well for that.

- Why do they work at the Lyceum?

- It’s fun, exciting and, despite the routine, useful for personal development. Moreover, guides often move from museum to museum, change the subject. And the official registration for working on bus tours almost does not exist – for most it is part-time, although hard: time is not standardized, and if the bus gets into traffic, you have no right to be silent for a second. You need to know the city perfectly, be able to tell the driver where to go. After all, if the street is blocked, it is necessary to choose the optimal route not from the point of view of logistics, but fits into the theme of the excursion.

- What's the hardest thing about your job?

- To create the illusion that everything I’m talking about has literally just crossed my mind.

- Do funny things happen often?

- Regularly. Once in Lyceum came a girl-guide, who worked exactly a week or two: “our everything” in her mouth sounded like “Alexander Sergeyevich Potakin”. Her groups and grandmother-watchers had fun, but she realized that the work of the guide and lisp are incompatible. And one boy even put me at a dead end: he came up after the tour and said: “Mozhsfotkompushkin?” Only on the fifth occasion did I realize that he had asked permission to photograph Pushkin’s room.

Ivan Mikhailov interviewed

Used material from the site vacansia.ru