Kazan Volga Region: Images of Folk Culture, 0+

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DESCRIPTION OF EXHIBITION

The exhibition includes 44 recreated costume complexes of the Russians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Mari, Mordvins, Udmurts, and Chuvash who lived in the Kazan Volga region between the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. All costume complexes have been recreated using funds from regional, municipal, and rural museums in the Republic of Tatarstan as part of large-scale research expeditions. For the first time, exhibits of scientific and cultural value from private collections, rural school museums, and museums at cultural centres in places of historically compact residence of the Volga region’s peoples on Tatarstan territory were investigated.

The project involved more than 100 museums of various levels. The expert panel consists of prominent scientists, researchers, cultural scientists, and public figures from Tatarstan and the Volga region. The scientific director of the project was Elena Gushchina, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Honoured Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan.

According to the findings of the research and expedition trips, the project’s scientific consultants guided the leading masters of folk culture in recreating the traditional clothing of the urban and rural populations in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Many costume elements (clothes, jewellery, and accessories) are handcrafted on the basis of preserved museum exhibits and private collections. The exhibition creates a unique gallery of images of Tatarstan’s traditional festive culture within the context of modern understanding of the development of craft traditions, decorative and applied arts. 

The exhibition’s updated exposition is supplemented not only by new costume complexes but also by musical folk instruments and household items of the Volga region peoples from the second half of the 19th to the first half of the 20th centuries. In general, the exhibition is a real museum of the ethnocultural heritage and diversity of the multinational people of Tatarstan. The basis and content of this exhibition have no parallels in the Russian Federation, and it has already sparked widespread interest among the Russian scientific community.