Today an extraordinary event is taking place at the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda museum-reserve. Restoration work has begun right on the main exhibition 'The Tsar's Court in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda,' work that has never before been carried out in the presence of visitors.
'A rare but quite substantial object — ancient metal shutters — has been on display for more than twenty-five years and is in urgent need of refurbishment. (According to the outstanding researcher of our ensemble, Wolfgang Wolfgangovich Kavelmacher, this monument dates to the early 16th century and was once located in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexandrov Kremlin). In addition, with a public restoration we wanted to draw museum visitors' attention to the fact that preserving an object is not only about certain conditions in storage and exhibitions, but also about saving it "from old age."','Working with colleagues is Viktor Yuryevich Astafyev — a master-restorer of metal works of art of the highest category, a member of the Union of Artists of Russia and, incidentally, a long-time partner of the Museum of Ivan the Terrible. Of course, the priority is the restoration itself, but we also wanted to show visitors, at least in part, this painstaking work, to attract young people to it, because saving rarities is also an art. Especially since in our region there is an excellent and the only training institution of this profile in the country — the Suzdal branch of the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Culture.'
- says Svetlana Smirnova, head of the department of the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda museum-reserve.
V.Yu. Astafyev has more than 35 years of experience in restoration, and he has had to do a great deal. According to the master, he has worked on exhibitions, at excavations, and directly on monuments. There's nothing unusual about that. But public restoration combines this work with an educational component: tourists pass by, they ask questions, watch, take photographs, and this arouses interest in the profession. Regarding the shutters specifically, he noted:
'Prior to the start of the work there were investigations, study of the object's surface, and measurements. And today we began the removal of dirt; later we will remove corrosion products, stabilize its active foci, carry out conservation and replace some decorative fastening elements that are missing. Modern joints in the style of the 16th–17th centuries will be fitted.'
Any restoration work is complex. In Viktor Yuryevich's opinion, the rarity had previously undergone partial restoration. Therefore a full reconservation was carried out. The difficulty lies in the fact that both ferrous and non-ferrous metals were used on the doors, which raises concerns about the onset of corrosion. As a result, double conservation will be performed at the rivets and fixings.
The ancient shutters, having hardly changed their place in the exhibition during the 'treatment,' attract the attention of the Sloboda's visitors even more.
Древние ставни, почти не поменявшие в процессе «лечения» свое место в экспозиции, привлекают внимание гостей «Слободы…» еще более.
