Ivanovo State Historical and Local Lore Museum named after D. G. Burylin

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Museum of Industry and Art in Ivanovo-Voznesensk was considered one of the best museums in provincial Russia. Its founder was Ivanovo-Ascension factory collector, philanthropist and educator Dmitry Gennadyevich Burylin.

The time of the formation of collections and the creation of a unique museum - the end of the XIX - early XX centuries was permeated with the spirit of the pan-European idea of public education. Dmitry Burylin did not escape the influence of this idea, with the diversity of his collection - from ethnography to paintings, from antiquity to modernity. This was the noble desire of the patron to open the world to the inhabitants of his native city in all its manifestations. Creating his own museum, D. G. Burylin tried to bring the wealth of world culture closer to the Russian province.

It was a noble aspiration to open the world in all its manifestations to the inhabitants of their native city. And creating a museum, D. G. Burylin tried to bring the wealth of world culture closer to the Russian province.

At the origins of the collection of "antiquities and rarities" D. G. Burylin was a collection of old printed books and ancient coins collected by his grandfather - Diodor Andreevich Burylin.

Diodor Burylin called his collections “treasures” and carefully kept in a special room of his house. Grandson Dmitry looked at them with great interest, carefully listening to the stories of his grandfather about the things he collected. But the collections of Diodor Burylin, without leaving the walls of the family home, remained accessible only to his close relatives. Grandmother Evdokia Mikhailovna, noticing the thirst of her grandson for collecting, after the tragic death of Diodor Andreevich in 1860, in 1864 gave Dmitry all the grandfather's rarities.

Fascinated by collecting, Dmitry Gennadyevich significantly replenished the collection of “treasures” of D.A.Burylin. In 1885, when Dmitry Gennadyevich was 33 years old, only in his numismatic collection there were about 100 thousand coins, orders and medals of the XVI – XIX centuries from 236 states and cities. In the ground floor of the Burylins house there were also many books, ancient and rare things.

During this period, D. G. Burylin begins to understand that his collection has outgrown the boundaries of the house and begins to feel a passionate desire to make his “antiquities and rarities” open and accessible to as many people as possible.

The unique collection of “antiquities and rarities” collected by D.G. Burylin became quite famous in Russia even before the Museum of Industry and Art opened in Ivanovo-Voznesensk in 1914. D.G. Burylin presented his collections to the general public at exhibitions not only in his native city, but also in other cities of the Russian Empire and abroad.

For the first time, the collections of D. G. Burylin were demonstrated at exhibitions in Moscow, arranged in 1887 - 1888 by the Imperial Russian Historical Museum and the Anthropological Museum of Moscow University. Later, D. G. Burylin took part with his collections at the Central Asian Exhibition in Moscow in 1891, the World Columbus Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America. In 1896, D.G. Burylin presented old Ivanovo printed fabrics at the All-Russian exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. The samples of fabrics attracted the attention of Emperor Nicholas II, who was interested in getting acquainted with a fairly large exposition deployed in the fair capital of Russia.

In Ivanovo-Voznesensk, exhibitions of D. G. Burylin’s collections were organized several times, the largest of them were held in 1903, 1905, 1908 and 1912. Some of the exhibitions gave an idea of the collection as a whole, some touched on individual collections, for example, weapons or numismatics.

One of the most significant in the number of collections and objects presented at it was the Exhibition of Antiquities and Rarities from the Collection of D. G. Burylin, which took place from 9 to 21 April 1903. The exhibition was placed in the building of the Ivanovo-Voznesensky women's vocational school on the street. Pokrovskaya (now - St. August 10).

The exhibition demonstrated a variety of collections – from antique objects to everyday objects of the peoples of the world. A collection of Masonic signs and books – more than 200 items – was presented. "In the Russian Department" exhibited a large collection of samples of cotton, starting from the XVIII century. Here was exhibited “Diploma for the gold medal for the collection of cotton and Masonic things” from the St. Petersburg exhibition. In total, by the beginning of this exhibition, D. G. Burylin had already 3 gold medals from various exhibitions for the collections presented to him. The collection from the sale of tickets for the exhibition was directed exclusively for charitable purposes: for the Ivanovo-Voznesensky women's professional school and the Shuisky children's shelter.

In the spring of 1905, a new exhibition of “antiquities and rarities” was arranged directly in the house of D. G. Burylin (now this building, which houses the exposition of the Museum of Ivanovo calico). This exhibition was also of a charitable nature. The proceeds from the sale of tickets were sent by the organizers of the exhibition to support the families of soldiers who suffered during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

Dmitriy Gennadyevich has never refused requests to provide his collections at various exhibitions. So, in September 1908, when the tenth anniversary of the local hunting society was solemnly celebrated in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, D. G. Burylin, at the request of this society, provided his collection of weapons for display.

In the spring of 1912, a new exhibition of D. G. Burylin’s collections was held in the building of the Ivanovo-Voznesensky women’s professional school. This exhibition was also of a charitable nature. Dmitry Gennadyevich suggested that the proceeds from the sale of tickets should be aimed at combating consumption - an occupational disease of textile workers. D. G. Burylin took over all the costs of organizing this exhibition. According to the results of the exhibition, about one and a half thousand rubles were received for charitable purposes.

In 1912, the hundred years of industrial and social activity of the Burylin merchant family were celebrated. Dmitry Gennadyevich decided to mark this date with the beginning of the construction of a special building for the museum. The City Duma and the City Council allowed the construction of a building for the museum on the land of Nikolai Gennadyevich and Dmitry Gennadyevich Burylin, without objecting to the construction of a tunnel that was supposed to connect the Burylin family house with the museum.

On August 25, 1912, a special building for the museum was laid. The building was built according to the project of the artist-architect Pavel Alekseevich Trubnikov. The construction took place in a very tense financial situation. The brother of Dmitry Gennadyevich, Nikolai strongly recommended to postpone the construction for at least a year because of very bad trade affairs. Not all construction materials were prepared.

Although the building was still under construction, the museum was opened to organized visitors in October 1914. Part of the premises D. G. Burylin leased Ivanovo-Voznesensky school of drawing - a branch of the St. Petersburg Central school of technical drawing Baron Stieglitz. Dmitry Gennadyevich was an honorary trustee of the school and hoped that students would use the exhibits he collected for their education.

The grand opening of the museum took place on December 26, 1914.
The draft Charter of the museum stated that its purpose is to “promote the development of local industry by familiarizing with the collection of samples of the Sitzenabive business, from the initial tiles to the latest products, both local and foreign, familiarizing with scientific and practical information on the Sitzenabive business; to serve the art, taking care of preserving and supplementing the collection of monuments of Russian and foreign artistic antiquity and the latest examples of art, as well as to promote the love of art in society by disseminating information about it and its tasks.”

In the building of the museum, Burylin placed a book depository, departments of Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, the Far East, Russian household antiquities, a manufacturing department, an art gallery. In one of the best rooms, he organized a library and a reading room, for the maintenance of which he donated a significant amount from himself and his wife.

Dmitry Gennadyevich was well aware that unique museum collections require study, systematization and detailed description. Meanwhile, from 1892 to 1914, there was only one permanent employee in the museum - the curator of books N.I.Tarabukin, who died at the front in 1915.

Therefore, Burylin began to invite scientists to study and describe the exhibits. Repeatedly, a member of the Imperial Russian Society of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography, a member of the British Royal Asian Society N.N. Kolobashkin came to the Burylin Museum. In the museum, he worked for several months on the description of collections of household items and weapons of the countries of the East, as well as objects of Buddhist worship, which had no analogues in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Academic secretary of the Moscow Imperial Historical Museum I.A.Tarabarin, who worked in the museum on the description of the collection of Bibles, admiringly reported to Burylin: “This year, my wife and I went to Pskov, visited the museum of O.M.Plyushkin, he has a lot of good, but your collection of Bibles remains the only one in all of Russia, even in Riga, Revel, Yuriev, where we were also this summer, like yours did not find.”

Unfortunately, most of the exhibits of the richest collections of the museum during the life of D. G. Burylin were not studied, and there were no records of them.

D. G. Burylin never left the concern about the future of the collection, as the museum required large funds and real professional work. There was no help from the city government, although in 1896 in his will D. G. Burylin wrote: “This meeting should subsequently be the property of our native city of Ivanovo-Voznsensk and should never be sold or plundered (it was acquired with great need and labor).”

The events that followed the 1917 revolution changed everything.

After the nationalization of the Museum of Industry and Art in 1919, there was a radical change in the direction of its exhibition activities. The expositions of the D. G. Burylin Collection Museum were closed. The museum received a local history orientation, and many collections collected by D. G. Burylin for several decades were forgotten or seized by the state.

Only decades later, the personality of D. G. Burylin, his contribution to the culture of the Ivanovo region, the uniqueness of his collections were appreciated by society.


In February 1993, the Ivanovo State Association of Local History Museums of the region was named after Dmitry Gennadyevich Burylin. In the museum, draping was removed from a memorial plaque in honor of the foundation of the museum.

Developed in 2003, the concept of the collection museum allowed to present in the exposition halls masterpieces of the collection of D. G. Burylin. In the period from 2003 in the building of the Museum of Industry and Art the exposition of the collection museum was opened, which included the halls: "European Collection", "Arsenal", "Golden Pantry", "Art and Time" ("Russian Department"), the Library of D. G. Burylin was opened.