Do you remember your first visit to a museum? What memories do you have from school trips to museums?
I remember it clearly. A memorial house-museum. Winter. A piercing wind outside, but the museum was warm. I think I was in 7th or 8th grade. We put on those ridiculous wool slippers (remember—the ones with strings, enormous in size?). They were fun to slide across the parquet in, though the teacher quickly put a stop to that. The rooms were quite cramped. Protective ropes everywhere. The guide was hard to hear, even though I tried to stand closer. A well-delivered monologue — it quickly became boring. I couldn't wait to get back on the bus to eat and swap notes with the girls sitting in front of me…
Does this sound familiar?
I can't remember exactly which museum it was now. But the feelings are fresh. Until 9th grade, when I went to study at the Young Guides School based at the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve, museums were pretty boring to me.
But getting to know the behind-the-scenes of museum life left an indelible impression. However, let's go in order.
I was lucky to be born and raised in Peterhof. Literally from birth I saw Peterhof's palaces and parks. Interestingly, as a child they weren't perceived as a museum (that is, a special place with restrictions and rules). It was something integral, immutable. Part of life. My mother started working at the museum-reserve as a freelance guide, and later the museum and the gymnasium where I studied launched a joint project: a two-year Young Guides School. By the end of the first year I had prepared and successfully conducted a tour of the Marly Palace.
I'm leading an overview tour of the Lower Park of the Peterhof State Museum-Reserve for tourists from Belarus. I'm wearing a red cap. Summer 2005.
At the same time, in school computer class we learned the basics of HTML, a basic programming language. The final assignment was to create a website on any topic. I didn't take long to choose. I had the text of a palace tour, I took photos, and in the end I created... a virtual museum? It was 2004! That's when I realized I was interested in studying museums and computer technologies. After enrolling in the Department of Museum Studies and Preservation of Monuments at St. Petersburg State University, in my second year I finalized my specialization and began steadily immersing myself in the topic of cultural digitization.
Screenshot of the homepage of the site I made in 9th grade. 2004.
Years went by. I had the chance to work at Russia's very first museum—the Kunstkamera—and at the State Historical Museum. That's another story. Since 2014 I've been freelancing and developing my project "Ideas for Museums." It's a community and media resource for museum professionals. I actively maintain my museum blog.
A talk at the lecture hall of the Russian Society "Znanie" on January 3, 2024. VDNKh
With the birth of my children I began to look at familiar museum spaces in a new way. Now I'm very interested not only in visiting museums with children — literally from birth — but also in showing colleagues successful (and not-so-successful) approaches to organizing family leisure in museums.
Northern Maritime Museum. Summer 2023.
My blog on this portal is a space for dialogue between visitors and museum professionals. I want to show how museums are changing, how they are becoming accessible to families with children. To tell parents how to prepare for a visit, how to use museum resources for a child's development. To share stories from our family travels. To discuss what we've seen. Shall we give it a try?
