Shimanov Museum of Local Lore

Back in 1912, the first streets appeared on the station of Gondatti, on one of which, Pervomaiskaya, they began to build model houses, "barracks", for families of railway workers. In four apartments of the house lived workers and technicians of railway workshops. According to the memoirs of the old-timers managed to establish the names of the residents. So in the forties of the twentieth century in two apartments lived families Pzepiorsky and Dmitriev.

In 1966, the youth of Shimanovsk took the initiative to open a people’s museum in the city for the 50th anniversary of Soviet power. The issue of the museum was not immediately resolved. The Executive Committee of the Shimanovsky District Council decided to allocate a room in the house No. 10 on Pervomaiskaya Street. This was not done by chance, since in one of the apartments of this house, in the period from July 1917 to February 1918, lived V.I. Shimanovsky - the first head of railway workshops. Gondatti, a prominent revolutionary leader of the Amur region.

The Komsomol members, under the leadership of the employees of the House of Pioneers N.N. Nepomnaya and A.A. Obukhova, established contact with relatives of V.I. Shimanovsky living in the city of Leningrad. A trip was organized to Shimanovsky’s sister L.I. Kraevskaya, correspondence began, and the first documents and photographs about the Shimanovsky family came by mail from the family archives.

Thanks to the active life position of veterans of the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars, labor veterans, pioneers, Komsomol members, trade union and party organizations, the museum funds were actively filled with materials of historical and local lore. A small exhibition area could no longer meet the needs of visitors. It was decided to expand the museum. The residents of the house were gradually resettled, the interior was reconstructed (at this time the exposition was deployed in the building of the boarding school No. 3). The Executive Committee appealed to the regional Department of Culture with a request to transfer the national museum to the branch of regional local history. The Executive Committee of the Amur Regional Council decided "in order to promote the labor feat of the builders of ShKSI BAM, to open from 01.08. 1979 in Shimanovsk branch of the regional museum of local lore. The museum was headed by Bondar L.V. Two years later, the repair and decoration work was completed, and on the eve of the centenary of the birth of V.I. Shimanovsky, the grand opening of new halls and expositions took place.

In the 1980s – 90s, the museum is actively engaged in the collection of objects of museum significance, the acquisition of museum funds, the formation of major stock collections. At the same time, exposition, exhibition and excursion and educational work is actively carried out. In 1988, the museum building was awarded the status of a monument of local importance.

In the early 1990s, a two-storey extension was built to the main building of the museum. Here are located: fund storage, exhibition hall, utility workshop.

In total, the museum has 6 exhibition halls, 1 exhibition hall, an event hall. The total area of the museum is 298 square meters.

The total fund of the museum totals 26,384 units, of which the main is 15,452 units, scientific and auxiliary - 10,932 units. The total number of museum collections is 20. The most interesting of them: Numismatics, Bonistics, Rare Books, Photos, Documents. Among the unique exhibits should be named: icons, church books, Old Believer cross, samovars, paper money, coins (all to the XIX – XX century). Items come to the museum through collection and donation. So photos and documents related to the life and work of V.I. Shimanovsky were transferred to the museum by his niece A.V. Kraevskaya in the 1970s.

In the permanent exposition of the museum there are sections telling about the nature of the Amur region, the development and settlement of the Shimanovsky district, the life of peasants - immigrants, the history of the city in 1917 - 1940 and during the Great Patriotic War, the modern city of Shimanovsk.

Annually in the exhibition hall of the museum there are more than 20 exhibitions, both from the museum funds and from the funds of other museums and private collections. The subjects of the exhibitions are the most diverse: historical and local history, museum, literary, decorative and applied creativity. The museum also regularly organizes traveling exhibitions in the city.

More than 15,000 people visit the museum every year. Among them are residents and guests of the city and district, delegations from the PRC. More than 100 thematic and sightseeing excursions are held per year; lectures, talks, events more than 50.

On the basis of the museum, events are held for various groups of the population (preschoolers, schoolchildren, pensioners, disabled people, etc.), for all age categories. The events are based on information material of historical and local lore, on the museum’s stock collections. In recent years, the themes of events have been significantly expanded, events with elements of theatricalization, using technical means have been introduced into practice. A special hall is equipped for events.

Of the interesting events should be called the meeting of schoolchildren and “children of war” – “Generation whose childhood is war”; educational event “Live and still old” – for pensioners, members of the club “Golden Autumn”; “We do not miss tea” – for the society of the disabled; master class on floristics of the people’s craftswoman from Belogorsk N. Kvash; a series of conversations “Prickly Truth” and others.

Employees of the museum conduct extensive research on the history of the region, enterprises and organizations of the city and district.

Created on a voluntary basis, today our museum is one of the best in the field. For achievements in the work, both the museum staff as a whole and individual employees were repeatedly encouraged by Certificates of Honor of the Committee for Sport, Culture and Youth Policy of the Administration of Shimanovsk, the City Council of People's Deputies, the mayor of the city, the City Council of War Veterans, Labor and Law Enforcement Agencies, the Amur Regional Museum, the Amur Regional Council of War Veterans, the Ministry of Culture and Archival Affairs of the Amur Region, the Government of the Amur Region. According to the results of the regional review – the competition of museums for the 65th anniversary of the Victory, the museum was recognized as the winner in the nomination “The best system of work on the exhibition”. Director of the Museum Veprik G.N. was awarded a commemorative jubilee medal “50 years of the All-Russian public organization of war veterans and military service”. In 2009, she became a laureate of the Amur Region Governor’s Award “For Contribution to the Implementation of State Youth Policy”.

For 43 years, the museum has gone through several stages of development. The expositions changed, new employees came to the team, but the museum continues to fulfill the main task set during its creation: the preservation and popularization of historical and cultural heritage. The museum preserves historical memory for posterity, because without memory of the past there is no future.