Museum specialties. Interactive game "Keepers of History" (professions of museum employees)

Russia is a huge country! There are many large and small cities, towns and villages. Almost every city has its own museum - a museum of local history, art, a museum of folk crafts or some other. When there is a tour at the museum, a guide leads it through the halls.

Thus, in the local history museum, the guide introduces tourists to the history of the region, the most striking events of the locality, and talks about the wonderful people who glorified this place.

The guide talks about how people lived in these places before, many years and even many centuries ago.

In the local history section of the museum, visitors get acquainted with the landscape, climate, flora and fauna of these places. The guide talks about birds, animals, fish.

In short, people who come to the museum receive a large amount of new information and learn about events with which they were not previously familiar. But a person needs information, it is his spiritual food! It enriches the soul, develops thinking, expands the idea of the Motherland and the world in general.

Tour guide profession- very interesting! The guide must know a lot, read modern and ancient books, be aware of all events related to the history of the city and the entire region. In addition to deep knowledge, he needs passion, the ability to communicate with people, answer their many questions, and always be friendly and polite.

If the guide is a passionate person, his story leaves a deep impression on the excursionists, and many of the exhibits will be remembered by them for the rest of their lives!

Other specialists also work in museums: scientists, restorers. Scientists are preparing exhibitions of rare things. Restorers work intently in their workshops, putting museum curiosities and rarities in order*.

Listen to the poem.

Historical Museum

We visited today

In the historical museum.

The past is gray

We saw more clearly.

We learned about princes

About kings, heroes.

We learned about the battles

About popular unrest.

We learned about victories

What our grandfathers accomplished.

The guide told

About our great people!

Answer the questions

♦ Is there a museum in your city?

♦ What is it called?

♦ Have you visited it?

♦ What did you especially like there or remember?

♦ Who works in the museum?

♦ What is the job of a tour guide? Scientists? Restorers?

In the school museum of School No. 80 in Irkutsk they do not just “play” at the museum - this is a real serious museum exhibition. And the museum staff here are also real, only schoolchildren. But they learn their craft through classes at the museum.

A museum worker is always busy either checking the movement of exhibits or filling out a book for the receipt of new exhibits.

The description of a museum exhibit is a long and labor-intensive procedure; it is necessary so that in the event of loss and then discovery the item can be identified. Imagine how to describe a Scythian figurine so as not to confuse it with another? Or a Qin Dynasty porcelain plate? Or the sword of the crusaders?

Only higher education

Most often, museum workers are graduates of art history faculties of humanitarian universities or history departments of large universities and pedagogical institutes. They need to know the culture different countries and eras, be able to distinguish the original from the copy. Among museum workers there are those who studied technical expertise in universities and know the characteristics of canvases and paints and can talk about how they change over time.

Each museum researcher specializes in a certain period or even personality. But narrow specialization does not interfere with the employee, and leading excursions is additional income, albeit a very small one. In different regions, a guide can receive from 100 to 1000 rubles per excursion. Those who know get the most foreign language and can work with foreigners. Therefore, among the guides there are many graduates of linguistic universities.

Working for an idea

In most museums, older people, most often retired, are hired as caretakers. Often these are former school teachers. The salary of such workers is the smallest - it rarely exceeds 8 thousand rubles per month.

Opening hours: 2/2 or five days a week, but always on weekends, because museums are open six days. Closed on weekdays, as Saturday and Sunday have the most visitors.

Employees of the collection department, where the exhibits are stored, start working a little later. Their salary is 10–15 thousand rubles per month, depending on the employee’s scientific titles and work experience. For example, a senior researcher at a museum with 10 years of experience and publications can receive 25 thousand rubles per month. In large museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg, salaries are slightly higher than in regional ones, but there is also much more work there: the museum collection is huge, it can occupy several rooms. Try to keep track of the presence and safety of exhibits!

The overwhelming number of museum employees are very honest people, they are distinguished by their dedication.

Employees in the shadows

Museum fund employees have a work plan for the day and for the year. They must check the existence of works with what is in the books of account.

Employees who work directly with museum valuables and funds, as a rule, combine several positions. They work as tour guides, and not only in their field. For example, some hold costume parties for children, where they talk about the history of the region.

The second option for researchers, the vast majority of whom are candidates of science, to earn money is by teaching in colleges or universities. They teach students history, philosophy, religious studies, history of civilizations, and sociology. For teaching you can get another 20-30 thousand a month.

And finally, the riskiest way to make money is to participate in archaeological excavations, which are held by museums or research institutes in the summer. Getting there is quite difficult - you need to have a suitable profile. So, if a museum researcher specializes in the era of Yaroslav the Wise and during excavations it is planned to study monuments of precisely this era, then you are welcome.

Manuscript funds

Until recently, museum workers kept records of exhibits using “barn books” - each work of art was entered into the record book manually. Handwritten accounting was a requirement of the old instructions written back in the 1980s. Now museums are switching to electronic accounting systems, but not everywhere.

Exhibits often move: from collections to exhibitions, from hall to hall, they “tour” museums in other cities and return back.

If anyone gets bored in museums, it’s the curators. And then mostly in small exhibitions. These are usually older people with higher education. But if you work hard, you never get bored. In the Tretyakov Gallery, for example, they are all sitting on pins and needles: there is a large flow of visitors, God forbid anything happens.

Download:

Preview:

Museum worker. Secrets of the profession

A museum worker is always busy either checking the movement of exhibits or filling out a book for the receipt of new exhibits.

Only higher education

Most often, museum workers are graduates of art history faculties of humanitarian universities or history departments of large universities and pedagogical institutes. They must know the cultural features of different countries and eras, and be able to distinguish an original from a copy. Among museum workers there are those who studied technical expertise in universities and know the characteristics of canvases and paints and can talk about how they change over time.

Each museum researcher specializes in a certain period or even personality. But narrow specialization does not interfere with the employee, and leading excursions is additional income, albeit a very small one. In different regions, a guide can receive from 100 to 1000 rubles per excursion. Those who know a foreign language and can work with foreigners receive the most. Therefore, among the guides there are many graduates of linguistic universities.

Working for an idea

Opening hours: 2/2 or five days a week, but always on weekends, because museums are open six days. Closed on weekdays, as Saturday and Sunday have the most visitors.

The overwhelming number of museum employees are very honest people, they are distinguished by their dedication.

Employees in the shadows

Museum fund employees have a work plan for the day and for the year. They must check the existence of works with what is in the books of account.

And finally, the riskiest way to make money is to participate in archaeological excavations that are carried out by museums or research institutes in the summer. Getting there is quite difficult - you need to have a suitable profile. So, if a museum researcher specializes in the era of Yaroslav the Wise and during excavations it is planned to study monuments of precisely this era, then you are welcome.

Manuscript funds

Exhibits often move: from collections to exhibitions, from hall to hall, they “tour” museums in other cities and return back.

If anyone gets bored in museums, it’s the curators. And then mostly in small exhibitions. These are, as a rule, older people with higher education. But if you work hard, you never get bored. In the Tretyakov Gallery, for example, they are all sitting on pins and needles: there is a large flow of visitors, God forbid anything happens.

For recent years More and more new museums are opening in Moscow, and old ones are not shy about moving to new places, expanding their territories and completely changing themselves. From repositories of artifacts, museums become cultural centers that combine leisure, research and social activities. And they could not succeed in this without a new wave of young employees who, having graduated from humanities universities, go to work as curators, methodologists and researchers in art, scientific and historical museums. The Village found several of these people in the city's main museums and spoke with them about what it's like to be a young person in a museum and how these institutions are changing.

Photos

Ivan Anisimov

Nikolay Bogantsev, 24 years old

employee of the research group of the Polytechnic Museum

Those people who five years ago agreed to new sidewalks and good museums and gave up political freedoms, 50 years of walking along these new sidewalks to new museums and becoming more aware of the need for political freedoms. And I hope they get them this time

Liliana Marre, 25 years old

curator of inclusive programs and exhibition department specialist

Garage chief curator Kate Fowle once talked about one of the first museums contemporary art MoMA and Alfred Barr, who became its director: “He came there at 27 years old. Now they would say: “Oh my God, what an old man!”»

I studied at St. Petersburg state university in art history, and then entered the master's program at Moscow State University and moved to Moscow. The first thing I had to do was find a job, continuing my research in the field of contemporary Russian art, and the choice fell on Garage. At Garage I participated in the work of the inclusive department, and pretty soon I was offered a job as a specialist in the exhibition department of the Museum of Russian Impressionism.

In terms of applied education in the field of art management in Russia there is a slight failure. Or at least it was. I think that in a couple of years we will see new graduates who, upon leaving the university, will understand how to engage in arts management. Four years ago, all this was learned immediately in practice. Now that more and more highly specialized courses are appearing in higher education educational institutions, it is possible to obtain a theoretical basis before the trial and error phase. This is an advantage, and it's great.

I came to the museum with certain ideas, and they immediately gave me the freedom to implement them. For example, the accessible environment in the museum was very important to me, and my management and the entire team agreed on this. As a result, only two months have passed since the opening of the museum, and we already have the first deaf guide in Moscow, Viktor Palyony, and the first multimedia video guide. Starting in the fall, we are planning to launch programs for children and adults with visual impairments, a series of lectures for the deaf, master classes and excursions for children and adults with mental disabilities.

Garage chief curator Kate Fowle once talked about one of the first museums of modern art, MoMA, and Alfred Barr, who became its director: “He came there at the age of 27. Now they would say: “Oh God, what an old man!”” Responsibility educates you. We have a very young team, everyone has a huge responsibility. When choosing museum staff, age should not be a deciding factor. You can hire people who are under 30 years old: young people have the consciousness and education to do something important well. This is the spirit of the times: young people were told that they can and should take responsibility. And everyone listened.

If you work in the museum field, you must be prepared to invest yourself fully in what you do, just like in any other business. If you are passionate about something, you see it in your head, and even if everything is in complete chaos, then they will help you put it together. The whole team will stand up for good idea, even if it seems dubious at first. This was the case with the video guide for the deaf. Because if you don’t work in this area, then it’s quite difficult to understand why this is important and how many people need it.

The Museum of Russian Impressionism is already a museum of the future. An ideal museum should simultaneously bring aesthetic pleasure, have an educational function and, most importantly, be as comfortable and open to everyone as possible.

It’s no longer so important to us how much we get what will happen to us materially. But it's important for us to do what we think is right, cool is what we believe in

Note: Natalya Kudryavtseva, who participated in the creation of the material, is an employee of the Polytechnic Museum.

Preservation of cultural and historical heritage is one of the main responsibilities of the state. And the best form of their preservation, especially during periods of global political crises, economic instability and other large-scale changes in the state, is undoubtedly museums.

They had to perform this function throughout the entire period of the formation of Russia as a modern state - during the period of revolutions, wars and changes in political regimes,museum workers were the only ones who understood the true value of historical heritage. IN different times they had to face many problems, not only financial, but also ideological. And what’s most unfortunate is that many of them have survived to this day.

Despite the fact that the time of greatest government upheaval has already passed, the museum community constantly has to deal with new challenges, such as lack of government funding, missing exhibits, the need to repair storage facilities, low salaries - we constantly hear about all this from the media.

What really is the state of the museum fund today? What problems do museum workers face, and what professions are relevant in this area today? On the threshold International Day museums, celebrated on May 18, Careerist.ru will provide answers to these questions.

Museum studies in Russia

Museums have existed in Russia for more than 300 years - their appearance was preceded by a centuries-old period, during which the accumulation of historical relics, military items, sacred trophies, ancient books and manuscripts, and the preservation of churches and residences of noble persons took place. Gradually, in the process of collecting them, elements of purposeful collecting appeared.

The Petrovskaya Kunstkamera, created in 1714, is rightfully considered the first museum in Russia. , after which there was a significant leap in museums, and antiquities began to be systematically searched for. For a long time, the Kunstkamera remained the only museum in Russia, and this continued until the middle and even the second half of the 18th century, when scientific communities developed their vigorous activity. Subsequently, museums began to develop more rapidly - a mass of cultural, scientific and artistic institutions appeared, including the well-known Hermitage.

Further awareness and development of the educational capabilities of museums led to the fact that in the 19th century they no longer became separate collections, but groups of natural sciences and historical museums at universities and scientific communities - occurred qualitatively new round. During the same period, public museums were formed, andmost of the private collections collected were recognized as national heritage. This determined the main trends within which museums developed until the end of the 19th century.

The subsequent period is characterized by a total, but nevertheless spontaneous opening of museums. Local, provincial museums were also gaining momentum - together with them, in the pre-revolutionary period, there were more than 200 institutions of this kind throughout Russia.

With the advent of Soviet power, the museum industry was transformed. There was another and qualitatively new round of collecting and preserving cultural heritage, however, during the revolution, many exhibits were lost and stolen. At the same time, the Soviet government was able to systematize museums as a phenomenon, popularizing their role in the development of society and using them as an educational tool.

It was under the Soviet regime that paid admission was first introduced and a wide network of local local history museums, a lot of restoration and restoration work was carried out, and the museum business became established as the most important cultural and educational institution of society.

Today there are more than 2.7 thousand museums in Russiaof all departments - these are local, architectural, and factory museums, museums of universities and many others. The general fund of museums includes more than 83 million exhibits.More than 102 million people visit Russian museums annually, and more than 2/3 of them are our fellow citizens. This clearly shows that interest in domestic cultural heritage still high. At the same time, 80% of the buildings that house national museums are not suitable for storing exhibits, and this is not all of their problems.

Problems of the museum community

Today, more than 40% of Russian museums are located in ancient buildings, which even theoretically cannot be equipped for proper storage of exhibits . At the same time, they increasingly began to come into the focus of domestic media not as heroes of cultural columns, but as victims of incidents - we constantly hear about fires, emergency conditions of storage facilities, theft of valuables, etc.

Regarding the latter, a recent all-Russian audit showed thatDuring the post-Soviet period, the museum fund lost about 50 thousand exhibits. And according to many museum workers, the lack of proper attention from the state is to blame.

Despite the existence of the Union of Museums of Russia, only eminent galleries and museum-reserves that are able to attract visitors with their historical value receive a real solution to pressing problems.

About the problems of the largest Russian museums, such as the Hermitage, Tretyakov Gallery, the Armory Chamber or the Grand Model, there is no need to say at all - due to the exhibits in them, they have long since become profitable commercial enterprises and do not need additional care at all. For local and local history museums, the fundamental problem is attracting visitors -the less popularity an institution has among the population, the less attention it receives from the state.

The conceptual problem has become no less important - today, more and more people are trying to actualize the secondary functions of museums, positioning them as an environment for cultural leisure and profitable tourism, bringing these functions to the fore.

However, museum workers focus the attention of the state on the fact that the primary task of museums is, first of all,function of preserving the cultural DNA of a nationand the possibility of its transmission to future generations. According to representatives of the museum community, museums cannot be classified as cultural, educational, and especially entertainment institutions. They were initially designed not for profitability, but for performing storage tasks, the retraining of which threatens museums with total disappearance.

One of the biggest problems is also considered to be the issue of material support. In this part, they remain especially relevantissues of construction of modern storage facilities and exhibition premises, investments in science,lack of government support for research and collecting activities, and, of course, funding for wages. The last question is of particular concern to workers in provincial museums - their average salary does not exceed 12-13 thousand rubles, which is too little even by average Russian standards.

Museum staff

And despite such a lot of problems, over the past decade, the number of museum workers has almost doubled - to 65 thousand people . More than 70% of them are women in their pre-retirement years, with an average age of 59 years. In this regard, the issue of generational change and training of young employees for the museum industry is becoming more relevant than ever.

Thus, over the past couple of decades, more than 30 museum studies departments have been opened in Russia at institutes in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Siberia, the Volga region and even the Far East. At the same time, the understanding of the profession of a museum worker is fundamentally changing. WITHToday, a museum specialist is a professional who has a new worldview based on reliable information about the cultural and historical past of his homeland and understands the global need for comprehensive change and integration of diverse cultures.

In this regard, the number of vacancies has increased and the variety of in-demand museum professions has become impressive, including:

Guardians– specialists working in collection departments, recording and describing exhibits, ensuring their scientific circulation and making up museum collections.

Researchers– specialists conducting historical research, organizing conferences and other scientific events, organizing thematic exhibitions, preparing publications for the media and publishing houses.

Guides– creative and at the same time responsible specialists who conduct excursions for museum visitors, answer questions of interest and knowledgeable about history presented exhibitions “from start to finish”.

Caretakers– workers who ensure the safety of exhibits, monitor the cleanliness of the halls and adherence to the rules for visiting museums.

Museum work methodologists– more experienced employees, whose functions include the universal combination of elements of work of researchers, tour guides, excursion organizers and others. Their activities are ideological and at the same time pedagogical in nature, therefore only experienced specialists are hired for such work.

Exhibitors– specialists responsible for organizing certain exhibitions, responsible for their passage and ensuring their most productive implementation.

Of course, it is quite obvious that Demand for specialists in the museum labor market due to a rather modest level wages, which in modern conditions Russian realities It is quite difficult to compensate for romanticism, a fundamentally new approach to the profession of a museum worker and the opening of many new departments.

The interest of the younger generation can be arousedonly by popularizing the importance of historical heritage as a cultural component of society and at the same time providing sufficient social guarantees. However, the ignorance we observe today of the problems of the museum community does not allow us to talk about a bright future for this industry. Probably, even despite the enormous importance of the work of museum workers, they will continue to carry out their work in conditions left over from Soviet times, carrying out the functions of the custodian of cultural and historical heritage on sheer enthusiasm.

Any reprinting of portal materials in electronic or paper media is possible only with the indication of the original source - website.