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On the history of
the museum
Yalutorovsk museum complex
incorporating memorial houses of Decembrists is by right considered one
of the major sights in the town. It was opened in 1927 on the basis of
the amateur historic group of enthusiasts, and now the museum is well
known in Russia. Initially the museum contained paleontologic and
archaeological excavations made near Yalutorovsk, and pre-revolution and
soviet periods of the town history. The employees of the museum have
discovered unknown facts of the Decembrists stay in Yalutorovsk and
found the houses they lived in.
Since 1934 till 1947 the
museum was headed by Igor Ozolin, whose selfless work facilitated a lot
creation of the Decembrists museum. It was he who found in 1935 a sealed
bottle left by Muravjev-Apostol a hundred years ago. This was a
pre-cause for organizing the Decembrists museum in Yalutorovsk. During
the World War II the operation of the museum was suspended, and
evacuated people from Leningrad were located in the house. In 1946 the
museum continued its work, and became known far outside Siberia. Over
the years the exposition was supplemented with newly found exhibits.
Found was a tomb of a Decembrist Yantaltsev, and the house of Yakishkin
was incorporated within the museum territory. Since 1960 till 1990 the
museum was headed by Nikolai Zubarev who did a lot to development of the
museum. He also systematized the data related to culture and history of
Yalutorovsk. In 1970 he wrote a book on history of Yalutorovsk. The
activities of the museum have made for the fact that Yalutorovsk has
been enlisted among the historic centers of Russia.
In 1990 great amount of
work was accomplished on revising historical heritage of the town, and
unknown data became available to public. Among the published works at
that period a particular stress should be laid upon the book ‘History of
Yalutorovsk since ancient times till today’ by a museum employee Albina
Bolotova. The book was recommended as a manual on local history for
schoolchildren. In 1993 the museum was the first in Siberia to accept
the exhibition of the Decembrists’ relics out of the funds of the State
Museum on History. Descendents of the Decembrists from all over the
world visited the museum.
In 1996 the Yalutorovsk
museum was re-organized into the museum complex with three subsidiaries:
‘Museum of local lore’, ‘Historical-memorial museum’, and ‘Museum of
Nature’. The museum has started up some original exhibition projects
such as ‘Bread and Butter in Siberia’ that reveals the history of
industrial traditions of the town through non-conventional approaches.
Director of the museum Pavel Beloglazov wrote and published an album
‘Yalutorovsk: a trace in history’ that contains the most valuable
historic data, rare illustrations and documents.
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