The Nizhny Novgorod Technical Museum is a museum of the history of technology and tools that was located at 43 Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, on the third floor of the building that also houses the Museum of the History of Artistic Crafts of Nizhny Novgorod Region. It later became a branch of the Nizhny Novgorod State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve (NGIAMZ).[1]
Collection
The museum's exhibition is devoted to antique machinery and tools: it holds foot-powered machines, motorless lathes and woodworking machines (driven by muscle power), ancient calipers, clocks, phonographs, and bicycles, including a cast-iron one. Among the notable exhibits are a tooth-drilling machine from the late 19th or early 20th century, similar in design to modern dental equipment; a century-old tractor; and a wooden bicycle from the early 20th century, made in Nizhny Novgorod.[5] The museum was founded by Vyacheslav Khurtin, who is also its director; the collection began about 30 years before the 2024 anniversary, when Khurtin bought an old caliper at a flea market, which later became the first item in the collection.
The museum's founder, Vyacheslav Khurtin, is the general director of OOO Gidrotermal, a Nizhny Novgorod company, a member of NAPP, that specializes in the development and manufacture of heat-exchange equipment and cooling systems for power facilities; the Technical Museum is his private passion, to which he has devoted several decades.[6] By 2024 the collection numbered more than two thousand items reflecting the era of handicraft production and industry in Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries: factory machines, tools, examples of transport and musical equipment, everyday objects, and the first electrical appliances; a separate hall, "Made in the USSR," is devoted to the achievements of Soviet-era industrialization.[2][2] The museum occupies a single room; visitors can not only look at the exhibits but also, if they wish, interact with them: staff have cranked an antique barrel organ for guests and let them ride a historic bicycle. The exhibition is open: historically valuable items are not alarmed or hidden behind display cases and barriers, which allows visitors to interact with the exhibits directly.[4] A defining feature of the collection is that every exhibit has been preserved in working condition.[2][1]
Opening Hours and Incorporation into NGIAMZ
At the time the review was written in 2014, the museum was open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., closed on Mondays; admission for an adult cost from 150 rubles, and photography inside cost 50 rubles. The museum later became a branch of the NGIAMZ; by 2024 its collection of exhibits had barely changed, but its mode of operation had been adjusted. On January 1, 2016, the museum received state status and became a branch of the Nizhny Novgorod Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve.[4] In May 2024, the museum celebrated the tenth anniversary of its opening; at the anniversary evening, NGIAMZ General Director Yuri Filippov and the museum's founder Vyacheslav Khurtin presented new exhibits — a "Klingsor" gramophone and a cabinet-style phonograph. In addition to general tours and interactive programs, the museum offers a workshop on analog photography and the master classes "Grandfather's Craft" (bast-shoe weaving), "Basics of Weaving," and "Gorodets Painting."[2][2] Current information about the branch is available on the NGIAMZ website.
After the anniversary, the museum was due for a re-exhibition: the plan was to set aside a separate area for master classes and to expand the collection with newly restored items, nearly doubling their number. Exhibits from the Nizhny Novgorod Technical Museum have been shown abroad: in particular, more than 30 items from the museum's collection were presented at the exhibition "We Will Build a New World: Soviet Design" at a design museum in Hangzhou, China, after which the exhibition was shown in Beijing; the exhibits included the "Zhiguli-59" radiogram, an AMT-47 payphone, the first Soviet video recorder from 1982, a hand-cranked film projector from the GOMZ plant, a stratospheric helmet made by the Nizhny Novgorod "Teploobmennik" plant, and a model of the Shukhov Tower.[6][2][1]
Sources
- culture.ru — On January 1, 2016, the museum received state status and became a branch of the Nizhny Novgorod Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve. (archive)
- nn.kassir.ru — Among the notable exhibits is a dental drilling machine from the late 19th to early 20th century, similar in design to modern dental equipment; a tractor (archive)
- napp52.ru — The museum's founder Vyacheslav Khurtin is the general director of OOO "Gidrotermal," a Nizhny Novgorod company that is a member of the NAPP and specializes in the devel (archive)
- ngiamz.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve
- aboutnizhnynovgorod.ru — Review of a Technical Museum in Nizhny Novgorod — About Nizhny Novgorod and Beyond (archive)