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Issues of 2008
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To find, to preserve and to show to people
— Ivan, in what way did your collection start? — I started to collect the old objects in memory of my father. He died in 1972 and I found a few objects, just some items at home, on Vjatka river — I was born in Kukharka, now its Sovetsk town and brought them to Leningrad, became interested. I started to search — there was nothing, everything disappeared. I started to go from one house to another, to my teachers, acquaintances and to collect the objects that were disappearing. I brought the objects from vacations — I was a mechanic of typewrites and calculating machines then. I collected everything as samovars, irons and gramophones cannot tell us about the life of our grandfathers. Only being versatile it is possible to tell how our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers lived and what objects they used. The first exhibition was organized in 1972 in the cinema "Okhta" — "The objects of everyday life of the townsmen in the end of the XVIII — beginning of the XIX centuries". I exhibited about 400 objects then. Then cinemas "Narvsky", "Priboj", the cinemas in Petrograd district, in the palaces of culture. — How the idea to organize the museum was born? — When I had a lot of objects, this idea came to my mind. Before that I had the museum on Vasiljevsky island — "Museum of Saint-Petersburg inhabitants of the XIX — beginning of the XX centuries". The apartment on the ground floor and there lives a family: he is a mechanic, she is a teacher. And all the furnishing is recreated — the hall, the separate kitchen, briefly, a usual inhabited apartment where all the objects are from the past century. Everything — from the umbrella till the wallpaper. I didn’t even give notice to people that this was a museum. They arrived and I used to say: "Good day, the hosts are not at home, they asked me to receive you. Come in". But then the house was being restored and I had to move to Pushkin. At first I was given room in the city museum and then I showed a couple of various exhibitions. Then the "Society of revival of the artistic traditions of Russia" gave me this space. — Apart from the Museum of Rarities, where else can your objects be seen? — Not long ago I mounted the exhibition "Germany and the Germans. The relics of the XIX–XX centuries" on Nevsky, 14. This is school ¹ 210, the building on which there is an announcement: "Comrades, during the bombardment this side of the street is the most dangerous for life". They are preparing the school museum devoted to the siege and gave me the room. Everything is German at the exhibition: the dressing objects, various instruments, household appliances. On Marat Street, 64 there is a museum of professional education where I have the exhibition "Relics of People’s Enlightenment in Russia". In the city museum in Pushkin, a tavern is opened, also with my objects. Now I want to open the grocery. I’ve got a lot of material; I’m to find the place only. It will be possible to buy everything there: bread and sugar-loaves — weighting till pood. There will be cereals, chintz, everything including kerosene, as it used to be before. — What other projects do you have? — I’m planning to create the fire train on horses. I have a set of copper helmets for the whole equipage, the fire-pump, the torches and the bell. We have the horses, I’ll find a heavy cart, put an equipage of six persons there, the men with the moustaches in the uniform. And we’ll go through the city with noise and crash in this cart. Recently Father Gennady, the dean of the cathedral in Pushkin, gave a wooden house not far from Pogi village into my disposition and asked me to create the peasant coaching inn. I’ve collected a great amount of the objects of peasant everyday life. It will be called "Peasant Yard". I didn’t do this kind of job before, but as I got the order, I did it. Here, in Saint-Petersburg region, there isn’t anything, everything perished during the war, but in the province it is possible to find the things. — What exhibit was it the most difficult to find? — I didn’t do it n purpose — all the objects were found in a natural way. Besides that, when they started to write about me, to show on the TV, people started to bring the objects themselves. Even now, when I travel in the electric train, I ask the people, what objects they have in the country houses. Out of 50 000 exhibits I bought only 20–30. It is likely, that the telephone sets are the rarest objects in my collection. I don’t value my objects in terms of money. The main feature is how much time I need to find a particular object. Now I put an aim to myself to find a particular object that I need. But, to tell the truth, I have everything. Try to ask me what is lacking in my collection. Nothing!
— And automobiles? — I took up automobiles as well. I created the club of old autos, the first in Russia and was the president of the club "Samokhod". Everything started when I found a four-cylinder motorbike of 1909 in the cellar. We addressed the people through mass media: we create the club of old autos "Samokhod" and in 1975 we held the first parade of old autos in Leningrad — 12 autos. I took an old lorry at Lenfilm, with the wheels on wooden spokes. The parade went from Vasiljevsky Island till Babushkin Park — along the Nevsky Prospect. All the Nevsky was clean, the driver was dressed in leather, and we were sitting at the head of the column of people. The next year there were about 35 autos, in a year — 70. The fourth year — about a hundred of cars and motorbikes moved along Nevsky from Admiralty till the Moscow Railway Station. Now there are many clubs of the kind. — In the beginning you mainly collected the machines, didn’t you? — Yes, I was fascinated with the machines. I devoted more than 15 years to the search of German tanks and military machines, wanted to create the panorama of the battle not far from Leningrad, under the open sky, with authentic objects: "the battle with Nazis machines at the approaches to Leningrad". There is nothing of the kind here or in Europe! In 1941 in August near the settlement Voskovitsy not far from Gatchina our tank damaged 22 Nazis tanks in 40 minutes. The reconnaissance reported that a column of tanks moved to the city leaving Gatchina aside. Our soldiers dug the tank into the earth in advance; it was KV, the most powerful one. Kalabanov, the commander and artilleryman Usov saw a column of tanks, the Germans were sitting on the towers, playing harmonicas and winging the geese — there was a poultry farm in Voskovitsy. Russian tankers damaged the first machine and some of the last ones. The column stopped. The Germans started to look around, they thought that the tank was hidden in the hayrick — they bombed it and found no tank. But they still noticed KV — it got 100 bombs but it was impossible to make a hole in it. All the German tanks were damaged. I found out this reading "Leningradskaya Pravda" and cheered up: such an event! During the war it remained unnoticed, the equipage was awarded and that’s it — there were many heroes then. I imagined this panorama — five minutes passed after the battle ended: German tanks are all defeated, the tail of the plain with swastika is seen, the machines with the autos, the rows of steel hedgehogs, of barbed wire, anti-tank obstacles and our tank. Come and have a look. — As far as I see, your plan wasn’t realized… — Yes, I didn’t manage to do that. Though I could succeed! By that time I had four tanks in view — in the forest, not far from Kirishi. I made an agreement with the main artist of the city, Akimov, he liked the idea, we worked out the scheme of the battle right there, the state farm gave me the field. But then everything was to be approved by the Regional committee of the communist party. I went there and they prohibited making the panorama. "You will show the damaged German tanks and when the Germans come to know that, they’ll start to do the same. We won’t do that!" I went t the Central Committee. "This is history!" — said I. They gave me the permission. But the time passed! I come to Kirishi to take my tanks — they were not there any more. All of them were scrapped. And during 15 years I investigated the entire North-West region with a group of skin-divers and divers. I had 100 addresses — I found nothing. There are bout ten tanks in the bog, it is not possible to extract them, two tanks from Mga River were exported. Now a German tank costs half a million dollars! — What other machines have you searched for? — I tried to find agriculture machines — I wanted to create the museum of MTS (machine and tractor station). I was trying to find the tractor "Fordzon" for four years. Kirov factory produced them. During the war time such a tractor stood at the entrance to the factory, added courage to people. But it was scrapped after the war by the party members. The museum of the factory still doesn’t have it. I found two tractors of the kind — I gave one of them to Sholokhov museum, the second is in the museum of History of Saint-Petersburg. I had 100 typewrites — the only collection in Europe. Now this collection doesn’t exist anymore. I gave 50 of them to the Museum of History and kept for myself 10 that are the most interesting. I have the typewrite "Remington Choles" that belonged to Leo Tolstoy. — Do you have your favourite objects? — Yes, all of them! They all are associated with the journeys, with different cities — Kostroma, Vologda; mainly Vjatka, Pskov and Novgorod regions. Many objects of interest. For example the boot — it had been on Hodynsky field. On May 18, 1896 the day of the crowning of Nicolas the II, 3000 people were crushed and disfigured. One of the women found her husband and kept the boot for memory. A new one, on the reverse side it is written "Skorokhod", 1896. And these are the gaiters of Fyodor Chaliapin. I got it in Sochi. I have another interesting object. Hitler, when he didn’t manage to take the city having employed all the possible means, decided to stake everything and to suffocate the city with gas. He writes a decree, calls for his personal messenger from Skorzeny group, puts the decree into his personal brief case, gives it to the pilot and the pilot flies to the commander who is not far from Leningrad. But not far from Olgino he was damaged by our plain and the brief case turned out to be in the hands of Soviet command. The decree wasn’t published anywhere because of the fear of people’s panic. And till the present day nobody knows about it. The pilot who damaged the German plain told this story to me. The documents were taken away but he kept the brief case for him. He left it to me when he was dying. Buff! I even addressed the historians of the war in order to know if the decree of the kind really existed. But everybody is silent — nobody knows anything.
— What are the rarest objects in your collection? — The jacket that belonged to Nicolas the II. The French calculating machine of the 1930s. Once the collector from France came. He collects household utensils. He saw my calculating machine and gasped. "I’ve searched throughout Europe in order to find one and didn’t succeed". It was produced in France though. I have it from Lyceum. There was an economic department there for some time and it was used there. One elderly man who worked there gave it to me. But the rarest object in my museum is meteorite. It is milliards years old and flew from near the sun. I was on Vjatka and in one village they told me: "We have a stone that gives sparkles. It is very heavy". Such a lump, it weighted about 100 kilos. Such a mixture of chemical components can be come across only in meteorites. — Did your exhibits "take part" in historic movies? — I’m often addressed by "Lenfilm" for consultations and properties. I acted in a film myself. In Bondarchuk’s "Red Bells" I had a role of a messenger in Smolny — it was shot on Perinny Linia. I drove my motorbike in the leathern costume of a driver. This was the costume of Alexeev, the best driver of Nicolas the II. The emperor inspected the auto transport, was acquainted with the drivers and granted his own costume to the best driver. Not long ago I acted in "Stolypin". I show the film about Nicolas the II and his family that was shot in Livady with my apparatus for silent pictures in that movie. I also participated in "The investigation department of his majesty". They used my propeller, machines and the rest. — Being an experienced collector, could you give an advice how one should begin to gather a collection? — How does the motherland start? From the house, the apartment, the personal archives, the photographs, the letters of grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Each schoolboy should know his own family tree. When a person knows his roots, who his ancestors were, he will be proud of his family name, his city, his country. It is not in vain that our grandmothers stored everything! Grandmothers and grandfathers are my main teachers. When I find something unfamiliar to me, I find elderly ladies and gentlemen so that they told me what these objects are meant for. The palace utensils do not interest me. In origin I’m a common worker, not a noble man, I don’t care on what bed the tsarina slept, what tableware she used when drinking and eating, these objects do not excite me. They will not disappear; they will be preserved in museums, antiquarian stores, at somebody’s homes. The objects I collect are to be preserved and shown to people. This is my motto. And here everything begins. — Does your family share your passion? — My daughter sometimes comes here. It is not that she is very passionate of it, but she understands — well, I’m doing that for 25 years already.
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