About museum preserve

Federal state budgetary institution of culture "the State historical and memorial Museum-reserve "the birthplace of V.I. Lenin" (further: the Museum-reserve "the birthplace of V.I. Lenin") is a unique urban landscape complex, occupying 174 hectares in the Central part of the city and uniting within its borders historical, architectural and memorial monuments of Simbirsk-Ulyanovsk.

The feature that distinguishes the Ulyanovsk Museum-reserve from related historical and cultural complexes, is the fact that it is located in the historic center of a modern developing city, thus, in the sphere of its activity are the issues related to the preservation, restoration, reconstruction and representation by the means of the museum of historical appearance of the Russian provincial town of the second half of XIX - early XX century.

In the twentieth century, our city that was one of the most beautiful provincial cities of the Middle Volga region before the revolution has undergone a significant destruction. In the 1920-s and 1930-ies there was destroyed religious architecture, and it was completely lost the high-rise skyline of the city. In the connection with the reconstruction of Ulyanovsk associated with the celebration of the 100th anniversary since the birth of V.I. Lenin a large part of the development of the historical center of old Simbirsk was lost

However, the city has preserved its historic layout of the Central part, significant architectural monuments of civil architecture of the XVIII-XX centuries and a large part of private historic buildings. Today the monuments of wooden architecture of Simbirsk, determined once the peculiarity of urban development, are preserved in the Central part of Ulyanovsk – in historical-memorial quarter of the Museum-reserve "the birthplace of V.I. Lenin".

In the city there are 175 monuments of history and culture, and about 100 of identified cultural heritage sites, 143 of them are directly on the territory of the Museum-reserve (31 subject to Federal, 116 of regional and 28 of municipal values).

The Museum-reserve "the birthplace of V.I. Lenin" is consistently involved in the preservation, restoration, rehabilitation of architectural and historical monuments. Since the creation of the Museum-reserve there were restored 42 of the objects. There were conducted an extensive work on the reconstruction of the fragments of the historical development of the city (on Lenin street, the former Moscow, there were restored the paving, wooden sidewalks, street lights, police booth).

On the initiative of the Museum-reserve and with its efforts on the historical buildings of the city there are placed 169 memorial plaques and 7 lights-pointers with the views of the lost monuments of Simbirsk.

Under the implementation of “the programme for the creation of the Museum under the open sky" in Lenin street, Museum together with the city of Ulyanovsk during the last 3 years have been carried out the repair and restoration of buildings, repair of sidewalks, replacing of asphalt to the stone-block pavement on the street areas from Spasskaya street to Zheleznaya Diviziya street, reconstruction of green plants, there were installed new commercial signs in the same style, there were placed the figures that mimic the fragments of the life and profession of the inhabitants of Simbirsk of the nineteenth century.

At the moment on the territory of the Museum-reserve "the birthplace of V.I. Lenin", which is a Museum under the open sky, there are placed 16 museums, the exhibition hall "on Pokrovskaya" and the Children's Museum center, included in its structure, several of the city's museums, children's central school of art, musical and choreographic school. A significant part of the ordinary objects of historic buildings are used for housing. All of them are located in historic buildings, preserved for future generations.

The museums that are part of the Museum-reserve "the birthplace of V.I. Lenin", are unique and inimitable, but having been seen and comprehended as a whole, they allow modern a man to plunge into the atmosphere of the old town, to feel the rhythm of life and the fragrance of the past, to feel not as a silent visitor but as a witnesses and a participant of the events of the past years.

From 1988 to March 17, 2012, the Museum-reserve "the birthplace of V.I. Lenin" was headed by Alexander Zubov.