The refuge of the Siberian muses

He looked like an old man who was thrown to the thread, trembling in the cold without a coat, with the holes of the windows standing in the ruins. Everyone was taken from the old man: letters, collection porcelain, rustling muses dresses, ancient guns, jewelry. He was weak, weak and besieged by bulldozers and cranes. But he was not broken. Oksana Mamlina recalls her meetings with the Novosibirsk Museum of Local Lore.

Muse is women. Women love care, beauty and comfort. They also love jewelry, dresses and extraordinary men. And since they are a muse, they can be present at the same time everywhere, to breathe, where they want, sigh in the corner if the museum’s life has cracked, and drive night round dances in the event of a good mood and an appropriate museum situation. Those who believe in the spirits of storage facilities, keep in mind: it is a muse dance, please not to confuse them with the poltergeist. Yes, by the way, if you dreamed of a museum, rejoice - this is for money and to increase in service.

For the first time, my meeting with the Novosibirsk Museum of Local Lore occurred already in adulthood. No, of course, I knew that there was a building made of red brick opposite the city hall and that this same museum is located there, but for some reason there was no desire to go.

Acquaintance with the Museum of Nature, on the station line, took place much earlier. And brighter. At three years old, my mother brought me there, a section in the wardrobe, a re -shock from the felt boots to sandals, and ... I saw a huge skeleton of the mammoth! I drapala with a cry from the museum on ice right in those very red sandals to the tsum standing nearby. After that, at the request of the mother, it was stopped by a man, with the help of him, he was dressed and put on a bus! I yelled from fear to the house. At home, she fell asleep right in her clothes, since then my mother somehow did not want to introduce me to paleontology. I returned there much later, at twelve years with a school tour, Mamon stood there and looked at me with a reproach. He was just as terrible, but over the years I gained the necessary experience to put on a mask of indifference and tranquility, so I limited myself to a cold look at a fossilized giant. More precisely, a governing, as it turned out later.

In my life, there were many museums, storages, but the thought, absorbed from childhood that the museum is something initially alien and incomprehensible, firmly populated forever. I still think so: the museum is a portal from the world of the past to the world of the present.

With local history, a case brought me a newspaper material about restoration. The museum then appeared before me in the best possible way: with torn windows sticking out of them by nails of the beginning of the last century, with a crispy plaster under the feet. It was as if a person was taken by surprise, inappropriate, with a painful nudity, not -free, disheveled. Without a roof, with old lags sticking out, he accepted me, covered him from the rain as best he could and watered with strong construction tea. Then he showed one of his muses, which obviously did not have time to set off from the workers ... The maneken girl modestly stood in the Code of the Binder, painted by the felt-tip pen in all appropriate places, and longed for the doorway. She wanted to escape.

Excavators dug up trenches around the museum foundation, opening the hidden staircases, a hole lined with an old brick that went right under the red avenue, a window with a thick forged old grate. Then I liked to plunge into all this twilight with a camera and a lantern and take expressive dances of shadows on the old walls. I was all waiting for the spirits of the past, and, probably, they were there, because you are waiting for, it comes ... The plaster with a thin stream for the scruff of the neck will spy, then somewhere with a draft will open the old frame, and a flock of pigeons will burst from the street, then the person will pass under the lantern and remain in the photo with a mysteriously illuminated face.

Famous people came: journalist Inna Lysenko helped knead concrete, jazz musician and composer Zhenya Gimer carried a wheelbarrow with building materials at the transition, and Da Funky Style generally arranged a brack dance on the roof. It seems that we liked the museum, funny, with our planets inside. This attracts this! I was sometimes sorry for this red brick house. They pulled the flooring from him as if they were selected, the windows cried with rain, boards flew from the roof, exposing the skinny ribs of the frame. He looked like an old man who was thrown to the thread, trembling in the cold without a coat, with the holes of the windows standing in the ruins. And I wanted to help him! At least beautifully remove his rebellious nudity. Calling friends so that he does not hurt.

Everyone was taken from the old man: letters, collection porcelain, rustling muses dresses, ancient guns, jewelry. He was weak, weak and besieged by bulldozers and cranes. But he was not broken, and although he had nothing to close himself, he ... sang. The quiet sound of the wind in the desert halls, sang on the roof, whistling into the cracks, sang his song of victory and anthem of his life. I then realized: when it seems that it came to an end, sing! No one can take away my voice, my “I”, my soul! So the museum (the kingdom of the dead, actually) taught me to live.

A week later, the house on Red began to plastered and cover with fresh pink paint. New frames raised with cranes, refreshed balconies, put the floor, washed the glass, painted the roof and took out the garbage. The old man won! He stood elegant and solemn in the middle of the streets wet from the rain, and life returned to him. Probably, the Muse fussily dragged their suitcases, rustling tunniks up the stairs. This is probably not the first time the museum won and resurrected from the dead. He survived different times, was the Chamber of Commerce, the orbit store, no matter what - it is important what was! For someone-just a shelter from the rain, for someone-work. He has always been what he was for himself - a container of history. The history of the city, the history of eras, the history of people. He died and came to life. Love. He parted and accepted. Keeped. Now alive. Strong. Galanthen. Rich. Open for the following stories.

Oksana Mamlin