Stepan Shchipachyov Literary Museum

About museum

The Stepan Shchipachyov Literary Museum in the Bogdanovich urban district is one of the museums established in the last decade of the 20th century. This museum is the only literary museum in the Sverdlovsk Region dedicated to poetry. The museum's collection consists of personal belongings, documents and photographs, and literary publications of the major Soviet-era lyric poet Stepan Petrovich Shchipachyov, a participant in the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War and a native of the Bogdanovich district. The museum holdings number more than 6,500 items. Among them are the poet's library, including books by Stepan Shchipachyov's contemporaries with presentation inscriptions and dedications; a collection of artistic miniatures (portraits of poets and writers) by Moscow graphic artist Nikolai Kalita; and much of the archive of the once-famous Ural graphic artist and front-line soldier Valentin Fyodorovich Vasiliev (1923–1986). Only in Bogdanovich will you see the unique collection of miniature watercolors by Valentin Vasiliev for A.S. Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin." Visitors can take a tour of the museum's main exhibition "The Path to Poetry," and visit Stepan Shchipachyov's study, which recreates the atmosphere of his creative workshop in Peredelkino. Rarities from the romantic 1960s were a selfless gift to the poet's homeland from Valentina Nikolaevna Shchipachyova, the widow of Stepan Petrovich, née Nikitina from Verkh-Neyvinsk. A new exhibition opens monthly in the museum's salon: talented artists, applied arts masters and photographic artists from Bogdanovich exhibit there. The salon is a meeting place for original programs by local poets, literary evenings and poetry competitions. Members of writers' unions from the Ural region often visit the museum. On June 6, Pushkin's birthday, the museum holds a Pushkin marathon. The Stepan Shchipachyov Literary Museum initiated the folklore festival "Kashin Round Dance" at the Stone of Two Rings, installed by the museum in memory of the wedding on Bogdanovich land in 1911 of P.P. Bazhov and V.A. Ivanitskaya. The festival is held every year on July 8, the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity. Visitors to the town can purchase books of Stepan Shchipachyov's poems, collections by local poets and paintings by local artists.