Description of the attraction
At the end of 2006, a new branch was opened in the Vologda State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve - the Vologda Link Museum. This branch is located in a two-story wooden house built at the beginning of the 20th century on a street named after Maria Ulyanova. This house was chosen for a reason: here for three months - from the end of 1911 to 1912, I. V. Stalin.
The exposition of the museum is dedicated to famous figures in politics, science and culture, at different stages of Russian history, who stayed here in exile in Vologda.
The Vologda Link Museum was not formed by chance. The building in which it is located has a rich museum history. In 1937 - 1956 in this house there was a museum dedicated to I. V. Stalin, his life and work. Later it was reorganized into a House-Museum, covering the revolutionary activities of the Bolsheviks in exile in Vologda, and then completely covered up. In 2007, the Vologda Link Museum was opened in this building.
The Vologda exile dates back to the 15th century, when the Grand Duke Vasily II the Dark was exiled here, who at that time suffered a temporary defeat in the battle for the Grand Duke's throne. Later, tsars Ivan III and Ivan the Terrible exiled military and political enemies here. Then the tradition is continued by the royal dynasty of the Romanovs.
During a long historical period, the lands of the Vologda Oblast were a place of exile for political opponents of the ruling regime, representatives of various social strata who were in opposition to the existing state system also referred here. That is why, at the end of the 19th century, the Vologda province received the name "sub-capital Siberia". The phenomenon of the Vologda exile is considered one of the most interesting and impressive pages in the history of this region and occupies a special niche in the political history of Russia. In the 19th century, outstanding writers, scientists, and politicians who were out of exile had a great influence on the cultural, political and social life of the entire region. According to approximate data, in the late 19th - early 20th centuries, a total of about 10 thousand people visited the Vologda exile: among them, B. V. Savinkov, A. V. Lunacharsky, N. A. Berdyaev, A. A. Bogdanov, M. I. Ulyanov, V. M. Molotov, I. V. Stalin.
The exposition presents political exile as one of the forms of the government's struggle against political opponents. In this connection, the museum presents a selection of materials telling about the activities of political detectives in pre-revolutionary times in Russia. Here you can see samples of service documentation (samples of forms, accompanying papers of exiles), photographs, stamps, a whistle and a policeman's cockade, and so on. The exposition also contains materials about gendarmes and police officers, as well as Vologda governors. The most diverse and interesting material about those exiled to Vologda is located on the second floor in retractable stands.
One of the main tasks of the exposition is to single out from the general mass of exiles - personalities of the all-Russian scale. For example, the museum displays the room where Stalin lived, exiled in Vologda at the peak of his political career: during this period he was elected a member of the Central Committee. The exposition is dominated by documentary materials, but there is also an element of theatricality. The life of the link was not ignored: conditions of detention, occupations of the exiles, contribution to the cultural life of the region, forms of mutual assistance. The central object of the exhibition is the room of an exile from the beginning of the 20th century. In this room there is a figure of Stalin, cast from wax, the creation of which was carried out according to his photographs of that time. The wax figures of a gendarme and a representative of the revolutionary community, personify the confrontation of political forces.
For all visitors to the museum, sightseeing tours are accompanied by scientific commentary. There are thematic excursions dedicated to Russian writers in exile in Vologda: N. A. Berdyaev, I. V. Stalin, V. M. Molotov. A historical club is open at the museum, where discussions, discussions, meetings take place.
