Shchekin Local History Museum

The Shchelkovsky District Historical and Local Lore Museum was created on a voluntary basis for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1967 in the district Palace of Culture (extract from the minutes No. 58 of the meeting of the bureau of the Shchelkovsky CC CPSU of 27.10.1967 “On the opening of the local history museum”). Therefore, the collected material was limited to military-revolutionary themes. It was a public museum until 1989.

August 28, 1999 in the city center, in the first stone building in Shchelkovo in the style of "modern" of the early twentieth century was opened "Shchelkovo Museum of Local History", municipal institution. Until 1917, the building belonged to the head of the joint-stock company Shchelkovskaya Manufactory A. Sinitsyn with his sons, during the First World War there was an infirmary for the treatment of the wounded.

After the revolution, the building housed: “Training on a hill”, “colonial and gastronomic shop”, “Council of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies”, “Executive Committee”, “Militia Branch”, “Books” shop.

On September 9, 1999 the museum received a certificate of state registration. The author of the exposition and director of the museum was Bagrova Zinaida Yurievna.

The museum has three halls, storage rooms and administrative premises. The permanent exposition of the museum is located in two halls: large and small. The third hall is used for painting exhibitions, exhibitions of decorative and applied art, for demonstration of private collections and collections of private museums, as well as for temporary exhibitions of museums. The change of exhibitions takes place with a frequency of 1.5 - 2 months.

To date, the permanent exhibition includes: ethnographic section, consisting of folk costume, peasant and petty-bourgeois household items of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, applied art. Also in the permanent exhibition you can see: the history of estates, dynasties of entrepreneurs, archaeology and geology. All of the above is placed in a small room. The history of the development of the city of Shchelkovo, the history of the development of industry from the mid-19th century to the 60s of the 20th century and the section of flora and fauna are placed in a large hall.

The exposition dedicated to the Great Patriotic War is shown in May in the exhibition hall.

Every year the museum funds are replenished through purchases, donations of local residents and collections of public museums of factories and factories, schools of the Shchelkovo district, finds of ethnographic expeditions. From 1999 to 2013, the museum’s holdings grew from 3,000 to 16,554 exhibits. Constant painstaking work is carried out on the formation of museum collections and scientific processing of documents. Since 2013, an electronic archive of the museum has been created.

The museum regularly holds presentations of local history novelties, the sale of books on the history of the region. The museum actively cooperates with the Shchelkovo Blagochiniy, the Committee on Education, the Department for Ecology, the Shchelkovo Library Center and the Shchelkovo Drama Theatre. Historical, local history and ethnographic conferences are held regularly. The list of permanent events includes the Children's District Local History Competition, an annual photo contest related to the history and development of the Shchelkovo district.

Exhibits of the museum were exhibited:

- at the international exhibition "Germans in Russia" (Moscow, 2000);

- at the II International Forum "Moscow suburbs: rest and tourism" (Moscow, 2003);

- at the exhibition "Cultural Reality of the Moscow Region" (Krasnogorsk, Crocus City, 2006)

The museum has repeatedly participated in numerous tourist and historical media projects. In 2012, the program "Tourist Map" TV "Moscow region" and "Architecture of the XX century Shchelkovo district" - a joint project of the Shchelkovo radio and the Shchelkovo Museum of Local History.

In 2006, the museum received the Presidential Grand Award for the project “Creating a Children’s Center for Traditional Culture in the Museum”. The staff of the museum was many times awarded with certificates and letters of gratitude of the Moscow Regional Duma, the Minister of Culture of the Moscow region, the Head of the Shchelkovo district.