Spoon Museum in Vladimir at 4 Oktyabrskaya Street
Tatyana, tell us how you became a collector?
I believe people are born collectors rather than become them. It’s a particular temperament of people who, from childhood, show a passion for gathering similar or related items. As children, such people usually accumulate collections of postcards, wrappers, pretty bits of glass, stones… The same happened with me. And, probably, all this would have continued to pile up in shoeboxes if not for one very significant event that once and for all put order into my insatiable collector’s urge. For my sixteenth birthday my mother gave me an imperial gift: six silver teaspoons with gilding and northern niello, in a beautiful velvet case. That turned my view on collecting upside down, because these objects not only amazed me with their beauty, but also intrigued me in terms of stories. There is an important difference between a gatherer and a collector: you can gather anything in any way, but a collector studies their items. Over time the collection began to accumulate not only interesting exhibits but also unusual stories about people, about culture and traditions, about cities and countries. As the collection grew, such stories became far more numerous than the objects themselves, because sometimes the same spoon can tell about a famous person, an extraordinary craftsman, and the town from which the item entered my collection.
How did the idea of creating the Spoon Museum come about?
When the collection outgrew the size of all possible shoeboxes and stopped fitting under the bed and in the wardrobes (laughs). And, of course, when I noticed clear interest from people around me. All this pushed me to the thought that it was time to share these stories, time to show these items to people. I told the Vladimir city administration about my idea and received great support: it turned out the city needed a new cultural venue. I was encouraged and together with my family began work to create the museum. My mother plays an active role in the museum’s life, regularly leads tours, tells interesting "spoon stories" and supports all our museum projects. The Spoon Museum is already eight years old; it became the first private cultural institution in the city. At first it was met with mixed reactions, because not everything with a "Museum" sign is a museum in essence. But our museum managed to prove that a private cultural institution can live up to that important and proud name, can conduct scholarly work and effective popularization. Besides, we managed to develop an important direction previously not implemented in our region: working with special visitors, in particular with visually impaired people. We were the first to develop and implement inclusive museum visitation programs in museum practice.
Spoon Museum in Vladimir at 4 Oktyabrskaya Street
How many exhibits are on display in the museum at the moment?
There are two ways to count. First – how many items are in the collection overall, and second – how many items are currently displayed in the museum’s showcases. The total number of items in the collection at the moment is over 35,000 exhibits, and around 3,000 exhibits are constantly on display in the museum. These are very different numbers, because given the number of items it is impossible, and not necessary, to show them all in one space. Besides the spoons themselves, the collection includes thematic paintings, a collection of postcards, including foreign and pre-revolutionary ones, and a porcelain collection. Different exhibits are shown in the museum showcases at different times; the exposition changes depending on the theme of exhibitions and holidays. We are often asked: where are the remaining items then, is there a chance to see them? Our museum has a practice of traveling exhibitions. We travel a lot around the country, not only within our region but further: we have been to Arkhangelsk, to the Vologda Kremlin, exhibited in Yaroslavl, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Ivanovo… Our "spoon stories" have a huge geography. For us this is an opportunity to show the collection from another angle, and sometimes to tell completely different stories. We are very happy when we receive a kind of challenge. For example, in the anniversary year of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin we received a very unexpected and honorable request from the Lopasnya-Zachatyevskoye house-museum – the estate of the poet’s descendants. We were asked to bring an exhibition corresponding to Pushkin’s era. This was a very difficult task – to collect items manufactured before 1837. And it is very pleasant to realize that we managed this task and selected magnificent items, mostly silverware. Among them were items from the "Bolina" factory from the English Shop in St. Petersburg, where Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin had an unlimited line of credit. Also about a year and a half ago we implemented another interesting and creative project with our Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve – we illustrated a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale with objects from the Spoon Museum collection. We are always very glad of opportunities to show the collection from a narrow angle. Such unusual, interesting commissions give us a chance to be creative, and for our collection – an opportunity to reveal all its richness, power, and beauty from a different perspective.
Where do new exhibits for the Spoon Museum come from?
The museum’s collection has been assembled for almost thirty years and has several stages of development. In the first decades the collection was replenished at my own expense and through gifts from close friends. If we talk about the museum period, of course, there are amazing, astounding friends of the museum who give us precious – not in terms of cost, but in terms of significance – gifts. For example, almost the entire collection titled "An Ordinary Object of an Extraordinary Person", which tells about unique people of our region, consists of donations. They are given by caring people, by close relatives of the people we tell about, or by activists who set themselves the goal of finding a particular athlete, artist, musician, or scientist in order to perpetuate his memory in the Spoon Museum. Or, for example, the exposition that tells about the diverse geography of our large country. When we were compiling a large map of the Russian Federation, many regions were represented very sparsely: literally by three or four spoons. But now, when we show the map to museum guests, we feel proud because even the most remote corners of the country are covered. In addition, tourists who did not find their region on the map later send us spoons by mail. Thus we often receive gifts that are very dear to our museum.
Map of the Russian Federation with spoons
What guided programs do you offer?
There is a standard program called "Extraordinary Stories of the Ordinary Spoon", where the spoon becomes a carrier of information. The purpose of our museum is to show that the extraordinary is near at hand. Sometimes the simplest, most familiar everyday objects that have surrounded us since childhood can be carriers of a vast number of fascinating stories. This is the main goal and main idea we want to convey to visitors. We start telling the stories of the ordinary spoon, beginning with ancient Egypt and ending with the present. We always emphasize our Vladimir region, because we still have several factories producing good-quality spoons. We have a favorite showcase which we jokingly call "I have one of these." When tourists approach that showcase, someone inevitably exclaims: "Oh, I have one of these!" These items are recognizable across the country. There are thematic programs that have a narrow focus and reveal a specific direction. It may seem strange, but there are spoons with which you can tell or even read fairy tales. Therefore we have a program "Literature and Spoons." We also have a program "Geography and Spoons," and specialized programs dedicated to important events. For example, for Victory Day there is a special program "The Soldier’s Spoon." All the museum’s programs are adapted for different age groups; there are separate programs for people with visual and hearing impairments. Compared to federal or municipal museums, a private museum has a huge advantage – we manage our items ourselves and can let a visitor hold a spoon by Carl Fabergé or a unique tin piece by Nicolas Gish in their hands. It is precisely on this principle that programs for visually impaired visitors are built. We have been working with this audience for eight years and have accumulated a great deal of experience.
Which awards of the Spoon Museum are the most special and significant for you?
For us a very special and meaningful award is the annual "Friend of the Library for the Blind." Also very important to us was the award we received from the city administration – we were placed on the Board of Honor. Moreover, this was a unique event because we received a group award which involved my mother and the entire staff of the Spoon Museum. Our team is small but stable – throughout the museum’s eight years we have worked with the same staff. Recognition by the city was a very important and significant event for us. In addition, we regularly take part in the "Tourist Souvenir" competition and have repeatedly become laureates and winners. What is especially important to me is that we won in the least "commercial" nomination. We produce intellectual souvenirs – books. And although in the 21st century that is not the most popular or best-selling product, we believe you cannot erase the book from modern life. We try to make our publications colorful and substantial so that everyone will be interested in reading them. For us this work is very important because it allows people to see our collection differently. We try to transform it into a book format, add interactive elements: develop stickers, publish books in which you can draw. These souvenirs that promote reading and the paper format have brought us awards. Also, in 2022 the Spoon Museum became a finalist of a very large international competition – the #WEARETOGETHER Award. We reached the finals with programs aimed at working with people with visual impairments. We regularly win various contests as social entrepreneurs, mostly thanks to the implementation of programs for audiences that, for various reasons, not everyone wants or can work with.
Can you single out a few items from the collection that are of special value to you?
There are certainly no items that do not interest me, because if an item is not interesting it is not in my collection. But of course there are items that carry special value for me in terms of significance. That very set given to me by my mother for my birthday, with which the spoon collection actually began, is exhibited in the museum. Also very dear to me are the items from the exhibition "An Ordinary Object of an Extraordinary Person." Every time I look at that exhibition I remember the donors: someone gave an item to me personally, some are no longer alive, for some items we had to mount a real hunt, conduct a detective investigation… This is the exhibition where there are no accidental objects and the story of how each exhibit arrived there is very interesting. For example, I could not imagine that a spoon from the Khrapovitsky estate would appear in the collection, and I never dreamed that we would have an item that belonged to the great Russian writer whose biography is partly connected with our city – Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev. Or that the collection would include a spoon from that very American company where Academician Zworykin – the inventor of color television – made his scientific discoveries. Each of the items in this collection is very dear to me. If you took them out of the exhibition setting and put them in an ordinary shop, they would be worth nothing. The market value of tin items is about 30–50 rubles, silver a little more. But their history and significance for the museum and the city are priceless.
Share your plans for the future?
Of course we have plans. We planned to open a second Spoon Museum, we bought a building, renovated it and opened… the Museum of True Stories. Moreover, the spoons that were initially moved there have already gone back to the Spoon Museum. We realized that the city already has enough "spoon stories" and there are plenty of people and topics to tell about in another format, not only through spoons. Therefore now we are focused on developing programs within the Spoon Museum, inventing new master classes. Nowadays in our museum you can paint a wooden spoon, make a spoon doll, a spoon amulet, learn the secrets of table setting. Among the novelties – our team developed a master class in painting an edible spoon. And of course our main direction of development now is not toward increasing the collection, because its scale is immensurable, but toward creative activity. We want to create as many interesting master classes, games and interactive events related to the spoon as possible.
Interview by Elizaveta Delorosa
