Rubens stamps and home museums. Belarusian enthusiasts are amassing unusual collections.
Some hobbyists collect stamps, coins, badges, while others prefer something more unusual – buttons, pantyhose, irons. However, each collection is a kind of research. Boris Vasiliev, Chairman of the Board of the Belarusian Republican Public Association of Collectors, told the Minsk-News agency about the fate of some collections of Belarusian enthusiasts.
With Rubens Through Life
During his school years, Boris Vasiliev delved into the world of collecting: first he became interested in stamps about the USSR, and then began to collect similar items with reproductions of the Dutch painter Peter Paul Rubens.
He attended a philatelic club in the Gomel Palace of Culture for Railway Workers. To this day, the collector warmly remembers the leader Mikhail Shifrin, or, as the young enthusiasts called him, Uncle Misha.
When asked why he chose Rubens, the interviewee jokes: "I probably liked the lush forms of the drawn women."
Jokes aside, Boris Vasiliev has also visited international exhibitions with stamps based on Rubens' works.
"Now there are one and a half thousand stamps and about 200 postcards in my collection!" he says proudly. "What is interesting about collecting? Researching a specific topic, studying the history of the subject. Under each stamp I indicated the name of the reproduction (or its fragment), the year of creation, the place of exhibition and a brief description (if it is relevant). Honestly, my house is a kind of art gallery."
So Different: "Soulful" Irons, for Jabots and Hats
In addition to mini-paintings (as the interviewee calls stamps and postcards), he also collects antique irons. The collection includes wooden, stone, cast, charcoal, "soulful" (with a metal insert), liquid fuel, steam, boiling water, and gas irons.
It is worth mentioning glass irons. They are not heated, but they iron! Vasiliev brought the first small iron, which started a large collection, from St. Petersburg.
"In the mid-1990s, while walking along Nevsky Prospekt, I noticed an elderly shopkeeper who displayed various items on a table. Among them, for the first time, I saw an old liquid fuel iron (kerosene, gasoline, alcohol were poured into it - editor's note)," the interviewee smiled.
"In 1913, an alcohol iron cost 10 rubles. For this money, you could buy 10 charcoal irons, 10 sheep and three cows. Or rent a furnished room in Moscow for five rubles a month," the collector shares.
By the way, Boris Vasiliev bought the find for $20. The lonely iron stood in the kitchen for several years...
"And then I became so interested in collecting that I had to sell the car to pay off my obligations for the irons. I bought a lot of them on websites!" he laughs.
The collection includes 1300 irons, and many of them have traveled almost all over Belarus. Among the unusual exhibits, the interviewee singled out the following:
"The corrugated iron from the XVI to the middle of the XVIII century ironed out jabots. Despite changes in fashion trends, it managed to survive until the 1920s. The "Arrow" iron smoothed out elongated folds on trousers, and the hat iron was used by milliners in workshops."
A glass iron in the shape of an inverted mushroom, it turns out, has been known since the time of the Vikings. This is evidenced by similar objects made of vitreous material found in the graves of Scandinavian seafarers.
As a Gift
Many enthusiasts have huge collections that are worth a lot of money. But, unfortunately, they do not always find support from their relatives and friends.
How do the collections fare? Some people try to sell them partially, others leave them to their children and grandchildren. And there are those who give them to museums as a gift.
"We try to establish ties with museums throughout the country so that as many people as possible can see valuable exhibits. For example, the famous collector Andrei Fishbein has been cooperating with the Lida Historical and Art Museum for many years, and thanks to the equally famous collector Viktor Moisiyonok, the military commissariat of the Myadel district presented an exhibition dedicated to the history of the First World War," says Boris Vasiliev.
The Belarusian Republican Public Association of Collectors, which turned 45 this year, includes an honorary member of the association, 86-year-old numismatist Alexander Orlov. He donated more than 500 coins "Figures of Art and Culture on Coins" to the Museum of the History of the City of Minsk.
Also this year, the institution was replenished with field mail from the Second World War. Another significant participant of the association, philatelist Dmitry Naryshkin, gave more than 120 front-line letters as a gift.
Boris Vasiliev says the following about the mutually beneficial cooperation between museums and collectors:
"A famous person once said: "The collector is the first cell of the museum." He is first of all a researcher. The collector can identify the topic and give valuable things to the staff of the institution. And they, in turn, will expand it, refine it and present the exhibition to visitors. Everyone is happy!"
Home Museums
"There are more than 220 areas of collecting in society that are officially registered in the Russian-speaking segment," the interviewee continued. "One of the unusual collections belongs to a man from Vileika. He collects buttons made of metal, wood, leather, glass, ceramics, natural shells... It would be great if the philabuttonist published a book "The History of Buttons"!
Falerist Valentin Avilov served for 30 years at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. He has the largest phaleristic collection in Belarus - more than five thousand badges on the topic of space! Over the past five years, the enthusiast has collected more than 600 badges about Minsk.
"Sergey Yanyuk from Kobrin built several glazed gazebos on his 25-acre plot. In them, he presented an exposition dedicated to the Kobrin region. Schoolchildren like to visit him," the collector smiles. "And former teacher Nina Anishchik is known to all residents of Slonim. I managed to visit the apartment-museum. In the hallway there are samovars, clocks, irons and other antique items, in one room you can learn about the First and Second World Wars, and the other is dedicated to local history."
More Knowledge!
"I am retired, but organizational and exhibition activities take up almost all my time!" Vasiliev smiles. "We travel with exhibitions around the cities of Belarus, hold meetings where we talk about our finds and acquisitions. Last year, the museum "Pages of the History of Fabric and Ironing" was opened in the capital's secondary school No. 2."
The museum exposition is dedicated to the process of creating fabric by our ancestors, as well as the history of ironing from ancient times to the present day. It features 150 irons from my collection. It is gratifying that not only history teachers, but also teachers of other disciplines showed interest."
For example, Boris Vasiliev and the physics teacher of the above-mentioned educational institution held a master class for children at the Museum "Loshitsky Estate". The collector told the children about irons, and the teacher - about the physical processes that occur with the fabric during ironing. The speakers demonstrated the work of "Arrow", glass and other irons.
The plans include opening a museum of the history of collecting at secondary school No. 81 named after Olshevsky.
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