I understand that for many the very idea of the Yeltsin museum will cause rejection. However, I think it is very good and very right museum. I'll try to explain why.
In autumn, I visited the exhibition "Russia. My History" in the Manege, where a very vivid vision of the Yeltsin era was presented. I can honestly say that it did not coincide with mine at all, but judging by the location of the exhibition, it is precisely this that now reflects the "correct" point of view on this period. Those interested can follow the link, but here, to make it clearer, I will give only one photo from it.
So, the exposition of the Yeltsin Center is absolutely perpendicular to the Manezhnaya. And regardless of which of them is closer to you personally, it is a gratifying fact that more than one point of view exists and is vividly represented for this difficult time.
The second is the excellent quality of the exposure, main feature which is the creation of a sense of belonging and an emotional attitude to what you see, hear, touch, and in some places it seems as if you are tasting. The concept was invented by the famous film director Pavel Lungin, and the exposition was created by the Agency museum design Ralph Appelbaum, which made the Jewish Museum in Moscow. Indeed, the same hand is felt, but although there are fewer special effects in the Yeltsin Center, it has a stronger effect, because it is about our life. About the life of our generation, about what we already seem to have forgotten, but in fact we remember and relive it, walking through the halls. And it seems to me that the main attraction of the Yeltsin Center lies in the opportunity to relive a part of one's past. If it's hard for you or just not interesting, you hardly need to go there. As it turns out, I need to.
And yes, the exposition is ideologically verified, of course, but thanks to a large number real exhibits, leaves much more space for forming a personal opinion than the "Manege" exhibition.
Enough introductions, let's finally go to see the exposition.
2. "Waiting room" near the cash desks. BNE gift exposition 
3.Here is the presidential limousine. And by the way, a good souvenir kiosk, which I did not take off. 
4. Text before entering the cinema hall 
5. An introductory film, very beautiful with many special effects, demonstrates the main milestones of the attempts to create Russian democracy from ancient Novgorod to Yeltsin.
In the frame - Brezhnev in a cornfield (apparently symbolizing the legacy of Khrushchev, whom he replaced) 
6. In the final of the video, its main characters again pass 
7. And then - the so-called Labyrinth, where, against the background of the main events in the history of the USSR, the life of the future president unfolds 
8. One of the last stands: the fall of the Berlin Wall, glasnost, Gorbachev - the conductor of perestroika 
9. After the Labyrinth, we go up one floor, where in the central hall under a transparent dome Yeltsin sits on a bench (see top photo) and looks at the footage from own life. There are enough people who want to take a selfie with Yeltsin. 
10. The main exposition refers to the "Moscow" period of Yeltsin and is built on the principle of "seven days in the life of Yeltsin", although it is rather seven stages. At the first of them, "pre-presidential", you can listen to Yeltsin's speech at the congress (?) of the party, sitting in a huge red chair, repeating the chair of the Palace of Congresses. 
11. We learn about the activities of the head of the Moscow City Party Committee in a trolleybus: remember how BNE traveled in such a simple passenger? 
12. And I realized with amazement that in the then trolleybuses there were almost twice as many seats as in today's (to the question of caring for people) ... 
13. Second day - August 19, 1991. An ordinary apartment of that time, on TV - Swan Lake and news releases of that day. 
14. You can sit on the sofa and look. And nearby, a radio receiver suddenly starts talking, and in it - Echo of Moscow.
And then I was "carried away", and I again find myself in the night of August 20-21, when, waking up in the middle of the night, I understand: neither my husband nor my mother went to bed, they are sitting near the radio and listening to Freedom and Echo of Moscow ... 
15. And in the room - an inconspicuous door; opening it, you find yourself there, on the barricades of the 91st. All this is seen many times on TV, but never so close and clear. Scraps of filming and TV reports, forgotten faces of TV presenters - but it turns out that I remember their names and joyfully shout: oh, Gurnov! Rostov! 
16. And shots, shots, shots... 
18. And then they are filled not only with products, but also with the equipment of those years. And on TV screens of now forgotten brands (we had Funai then) - fragments of old TV shows. And again the joy of recognition. Here is young Dima Bykov 
19. The program is called the Press Club, it was hosted by a lady whose last name I did not remember, but her name was Kira (suggested in the comments: Kira Proshutinskaya). On the left is Shchekochikhin, behind him is a man by the name of Yemelyanov (but I don’t remember anything about him except for his last name - they suggested: a deputy, peeped on Wikipedia - an economist, dealt with agrarian issues), and in the center I don’t remember who (suggested: Viktor Sheinis - deputy, active "Appleberry"). 
20. Everyone's favorite Svetlana Sorokina. I wonder what's wrong with her now? (again from the comment: it seems, on "Rain") 
21.Commemorative referendum. I took it off so that there were questions: yes, yes, no, yes, I remember from 1993, and the questions that had to be answered - alas ... But only later, I realized that the poster was a hoax: (The second question was about the economy , which few people approved of in the half-starved spring of 1993. (I checked my memory, the question was: “Do you approve of the socio-economic policy pursued by the President Russian Federation and the government of the Russian Federation since 1992?") 
Today, November 25, on Boris Yeltsin Street in Yekaterinburg, the opening of the Presidential Center B.N. Yeltsin (Yeltsin Center).
The exposition was visited by President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, accompanied by the wife of the first President of Russia, Naina Yeltsina, Interfax reports.
Before viewing the exposition, Putin and Medvedev watched a film about history Russian state from the time of the Novgorod Veche to the present day. The epigraph to the film was the phrase that democracy was born in Rus' before the monarchy. The film ends with the coming to power of Boris Yeltsin.
Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Yumasheva showed the guests documents from the family archive, including the protocol of the interrogation of Yeltsin's father, who was dispossessed and repressed. The President and the Prime Minister also toured a room in the Yeltsins' apartment during the 1991 putsch, reproduced in the museum with real furniture and a TV showing Swan Lake.
“The Yeltsin Center appeared in the main city of the Urals not by chance: Yekaterinburg is the city that largely shaped Boris Yeltsin as a political leader,” reads a statement on the B.N. Yeltsin".
The main exhibition of the museum is divided into seven days, each of which is associated with turning point in history modern Russia. Hall “Day one. We are waiting for changes!" talks about how perestroika began and what role Boris Yeltsin played in it. "Day Two" is dedicated to the August 1991 coup. Visitors to the hall “Third Day. Unpopular Measures” can walk along the empty store shelves of the early 90s and play the interactive game “Dispose of your voucher”: everyone has the opportunity to exchange their voucher for shares, sell them for a profit or “hide them in the nightstand”.
"Day four. The Birth of the Constitution” tells about the events of October 1993, “Day five. Vote or lose" - oh election campaign Yeltsin 1996, “Sixth Day. Presidential Marathon" is dedicated to Yeltsin's second presidential term, in the hall "Seventh Day. Farewell to the Kremlin ”you can find out all the details of the transfer of presidential power after Yeltsin announced his resignation on December 31, 1999.
In the center of the exposition is the Freedom Hall - a platform for an open discussion about civil rights and freedoms in Russia. Here you can hear what the word "freedom" means to the most different people- from former president Ukraine Leonid Kuchma to actress Lilia Akhedzhakova, from US President Bill Clinton to TV presenter Ivan Urgant, from writer Mikhail Zhvanetsky to musician Andrei Makarevich. A special studio in this hall gives every visitor the opportunity to record own opinion on the video, which will later appear on the screens of the hall.
The total area of the complex, which houses the museum, library, archive, exhibition halls, educational and children's centers, is about 88 thousand square meters, notes Gazeta.ru. The museum and archive have more than 30 thousand items of storage, more than 130 thousand photographs.
Modern museum equipped with last word technology, as well as a major cultural and educational center in Yekaterinburg. It attracts intelligent, cultural and progressive people. He has no equal either in Yekaterinburg or in the Urals as a whole. Installations, videos, objects that simulate the environment, interactive exhibits that interact with the visitor - all this arouses admiration and remains in memory for a long time.
The Yeltsin Center was opened on November 25, 2015. The location of the Yeltsin Center is not accidental. Sverdlovsk region is the birthplace of B.N. Yeltsin, and in Sverdlovsk began his political career.
History of the Yeltsin Center
Yeltsin Center building difficult history. Its construction began in 2006 by entrepreneur Mars Sharafulin as the largest business center in Yekaterinburg with the Demidov Plaza congress hall. It was planned to use it already during the SCO-2009 summit, but the facility could not be completed on time. In 2008, the building was transferred to the UMMC, but construction soon stopped.
In 2011, the Yeltsin Center bought out part of the Demidov business center for 2 billion rubles. In the spring of 2013, work began on the creation of the Yeltsin Center. In total, the cost of creating the Yeltsin Center amounted to 7 billion rubles, of which 2 billion was received as a loan from the budget. Sverdlovsk region.
The museum exposition was created by the American Ralph Appelbaum Museum Design Agency, which won the competition. Also director Pavel Lungin took part in the development of the concept of the museum (exposition "Seven Days"):
“When I visited the site of the future museum, I saw an unfinished array of a building with a round washer in the middle, where the wind was blowing. I realized that the puck should be cut like a pie - for seven days, seven moments from life. I wanted to take on difficult days when Yeltsin was in critical situations, because this is a property of his character - to get out of crises. The result was a story about seven days that changed Russia. Each hall is one day, and in each there is information about this day, where at the same time a story from the life of Boris Nikolayevich is told.
During the first year of the museum's operation, more than 250 thousand people visited it.
The Yeltsin Center is actively criticized by many people (99% of whom have never been there), and this is aggravated by state propaganda. It is now very fashionable to criticize Yeltsin, the 90s and Svoboda in general among poorly educated people.
Museum of Boris Yeltsin
At the entrance to the Yeltsin Center meets the first exhibit - the car "Seagull", which once drove Boris Yeltsin. Near the cash desks there is a stand with gifts to the first president.
The Boris Yeltsin Museum itself consists of nine rooms. Let's consider each of them.
labyrinth
Before entering the Labyrinth of History, visitors are shown a cartoon about the history of Freedom in Russia.
In the Labyrinth itself, a chronicle appears Russian history from 1914 to 1987, and tells about the history of the Yeltsin family.
Here are archival photographs, posters, frames from feature films those years.
At the end - a letter from M.S. Gorbachev, in which the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU, Boris Yeltsin, demands to speed up the progress of perestroika.
The exposition "Seven days that changed Russia" is devoted to further events. Its concept was invented by director Pavel Lungin.
"Seven days that changed Russia"
The Seven Days exposition tells about the stages of the creation of the new Russia. She talks about major events: from the October Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1987 to the voluntary resignation of Yeltsin from the presidency. Seven metaphorical days is Russia's way from totalitarian state to parliamentary and presidential elections, to freedom of speech and private property.
In each hall there are cabinets with screens where you can view documents, listen to speeches, memories.
The first day. "We are waiting for changes!"
Played at the beginning marble hall Kremlin with the coat of arms of the USSR, a tribune and carpet paths, where on October 22, 1987 B.N. Yeltsin delivered his famous speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU. You can stop and listen to the audio recording of the speech.
Portraits of members of the Politburo hang right there. You can turn them over and read critical statements about Yeltsin's speech.
Further - about the Moscow period of Yeltsin's life. Here suddenly appears a real trolley bus with Moscow views from the window (Yeltsin sometimes went to work by public transport). You can sit there and watch a short film about Boris Yeltsin. The stands visually tell about the cultural life and atmosphere of that time (late 1980s - early 1990s) - about rock music, theaters, festivals, etc. You can even watch a concert by Viktor Tsoi.
Second day. August coup
Suddenly you find yourself in a typical Soviet apartment. On the calendar August 19, 1991. The ballet "Swan Lake" is shown on TV. Suddenly, the phone rings and in the receiver they talk anxiously about what is happening on the streets of Moscow.
Opening the door, you find yourself on the barricades around the White House... On the big screen they show what was happening at that time in the center of the capital. And on the stands - speeches by the organizers of the GKChP coup.
Presented at the museum is a large historical tricolor flag raised over the Kremlin on December 25, 1991. He became a symbol of resistance to the GKChP during the August coup.
Day three. Unpopular measures
You find yourself in an early 1990s store with empty shelves. There is a food crisis in the country. There is only a salad of seaweed "Far East" and birch sap in a large glass jar.
There are also holographic copies of members of the Gaidar government, talking about economic prospects, privatization checks and even an economic game.
Things from a bygone era evoke nostalgia: Tetris, tape recorders and video cassettes, video and audio cassettes, the Dendy prefix, TV shows and series of the 1990s are broadcast.
Day four. Birth of the Constitution
Despite winning the 1993 referendum, the country is on the brink of civil war. There is an attempted coup. The museum reproduces the studio of the Ostankino television center, which was stormed by the rebels.
Day five. "Vote or Lose"
The history of the 1996 presidential election and the difficult election campaign. Old computers, telephones with stories from those days, campaign materials and a ballot. You can also see puppets from the program of the same name of the then, real NTV.
It also talks about bloody war in Chechnya.
Day six. Presidential Marathon
It tells about the operation on the heart of Boris Yeltsin. Next - a recording studio, where you can listen to Yeltsin's speeches or record your own. Charts with economic indicators Russia (the country defaulted in 1998). There is a window in this hall from which the Temple-on-the-Blood is visible, standing on the site of the Ipatiev house, demolished by Yeltsin's decision (when he worked as secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional committee).
Information is also provided on possible successors to the president, and a "nuclear suitcase" is also presented.
Day seven. Farewell to the Kremlin
The presidential office in the Kremlin was recreated. The New Year's address of B.N. Yeltsin in 1999, in which he relinquished power...
In a cabinet behind glass: employment history first president, pension certificate, award lists.
The last hall where you can listen to speeches famous people about Freedom. There are five pillars with screens divided thematically: "Freedom of Entrepreneurship", "Freedom of Movement", "Freedom of Assembly and Association", "Freedom of Thought and Speech", "Freedom of Conscience". In a special booth, you can write down your appeal.
In the center of the hall on the second floor of the museum, on the so-called "presidential square", Boris Nikolayevich himself is sitting on a bench in full size. Near the bronze monument, you can take a picture or take a selfie.
A more or less careful acquaintance with the museum takes at least 4-5 hours. And to see everything that is in the museum (including numerous audio, video, various materials), and the whole day is not enough. The museum leaves a lasting impression. Only the idealization of Yeltsin's image can be attributed to minor disadvantages.
What else?
Yeltsin Center: Temple of Democracy or Neo-Pagan Temple? January 31st, 2017
Activities of the Museum of the First President of Russia Boris Yeltsin since grand opening complex is under close attention the public. Critics of the "Yeltsin Center" and its exposition declare the ambiguity and ambiguity of the goals of the creation of the museum, and the museum's supporters regard it as a place that stores the "real" spirit of free Russia.
Apparently, the museum workers of the Yeltsin Center and those who prepared central exposition museum. At least the animated video that starts the exposition, which at the beginning of 2016 was severely criticized by the Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov, directly links historical figure Yeltsin and freedom in Russia.
When the film itself was criticized for its one-sided and biased interpretation of Russian history, defenders of the Yeltsin Center retorted that the video was not about the history of Russia at all, but about the "history of freedom" in Russia. Judging by the video, there has never been freedom in Russia, some of its glimpses were immediately drowned in “another tyranny”, and only with the coming to power of Boris Yeltsin did the country acquire real freedom or, at least, embarked on the “path of liberation” from thousand-year-old slavery .
Nevertheless, the very beginning of the discussion about what is happening in the Yeltsin Center eventually made me think, what is the Yeltsin Center? Is the center a mere museum or a “temple of democracy and freedom”, or maybe, as some Yekaterinburg public activists believe, it is a “neopagan temple” in which the “Yeltsin personality cult” flourishes?
Even during the first speech of Nikita Mikhalkov against the museum animation video, the press service of the presidential center refused to comment on the director's claims, emphasizing his right to opinion. However, later, when communicating with public figures in Yekaterinburg, the director of the Yeltsin Center Dina Sorokina declared the impossibility of changing the central storyline museum exposition. She also previously stated that the museum is dedicated to history and the era and "will never become the" apartment "of Boris Nikolaevich."
However, critics immediately draw attention to the disproportion between the structure and the personality of Boris Yeltsin in history. The museum building itself, the construction of which took about seven billion rubles, has "cyclopean dimensions." The total area of the building exceeds 85 thousand square meters. Public and political figure Boris Mironov.
“In order to understand the grandeur of perpetuating the memory of Yeltsin, let me remind you that total area Winter Palace 60 thousand sq. m, and the area of the Manezh - the Central Exhibition Hall of Moscow - only 6.5 thousand square meters. m, that is, the town-planning monument to Yeltsin is more than a dozen Manezh, erected on top of each other. Pharaonic scope!- says Boris Mironov.
At the entrance to the center itself there is a 10-meter white marble obelisk stela with a bas-relief of Boris Yeltsin in full height on a dark gray base. It is also interesting how the author of the monument, a Moscow sculptor, characterizes his work. George Frangulyan who created a "block in motion" from "living" material.
“White marble was chosen over the traditional bronze or granite because it is a living, translucent material; this monument is not an obelisk, but a block, a block in motion, which was Boris Nikolaevich", the sculptor said.
And this is not the only sculpture of the first president to be seen by the visitor.
The museum itself has unusual shape and decision. The second floor is round in horizontal section, and the creators came up with the concept of a “rotor”. Each visitor gets into a “clockwork” and moves from room to room through the doorways of the halls, and gets to the second level round square, in the middle of which is a life-size monument to the first president made of bronze in the style of urban sculpture. The author of the idea of the exposition, and it is called "7 days", was the director Pavel Lungin. After a visitor to the museum has passed seven rooms, he will go straight to Boris Yeltsin, sitting in front of a large monitor. He sits on a bench and watches a movie about himself.
“When I visited the site of the future museum, I saw an unfinished array of a building with a round washer in the middle, where the wind was blowing. I realized that the puck should be cut like a pie - for seven days, seven moments from life. I wanted to take on difficult days when Yeltsin was in critical situations, because it is a feature of his character to get out of crises. The result was a story about seven days that changed Russia. Each hall is one day, and in each there is information about this day, where at the same time a story from the life of Boris Nikolayevich is told.- said Pavel Lungin.
The direct author of the Yeltsin Center is the architect Boris Bernaskoni. His work was appreciated by one of the founders of the Valode & Pistre bureau, which built the Museum contemporary art in Bordeaux Jean Pistre, according to which the author offers the public not a building, but a "way".
« Express in architectural building life and political career head of state is one of the most difficult tasks for an architect. life path such people are usually so complex that it is difficult to reduce it to one static and complete volume. Boris Bernaskoni offers the public not a building, but a path built in space around volumes that form milestones of life. He deviates from the canons classical composition and refers to a metaphor that reflects the new path of Russia, and this path was just discovered by Boris Yeltsin. The architecture of this building is neither official nor pompous.”, says Jean Pistre.
Critics of the Yeltsin Center also talk about the museum's "unusualness". Public activists believe that the exposition in the museum is built not so much in the museum canons, but in the "religious". According to the head of the Sverdlovsk regional branch public organization"Essence of Time" Artemy Brusnitsyn, the very name of the exposition is “7 days”, in which there are no facts discrediting the first president, or they are distorted, or, if one cannot help but say, they are simply hidden, has a religious basis. And one of the foundations of any cult is the infallibility of the supreme deity. The public figure also draws attention to the round shape of the exposition.
“The museum exposition itself is built in a strange way. That is, the thought of blasphemy first arises. This is Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, as such a supreme deity and seven days of creation, yes, that is, the "Old Testament god" who created new world, new reality, new Russia. It seems to me that the creators of the museum made fun of everyone. They recreated the history of Dante's hell in the museum. That is, in the first circle of the exposition, the beginning of "hell", then the rest of the concentric circles go, and in the very epicenter, as you remember, closest to the void, there are Judas, traitors. And actually we see how the "bronze" Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin sits and looks at the film with himself in leading role», — said Artemy Brusnitsyn.
And if you carefully consider the museum's exposition, then even the most obvious disadvantages of Yeltsin's policy, such as shock therapy that drove the population of Russia into poverty and Civil War in Chechnya, are presented almost as the achievements of the first president, who was forced to carry out "unpopular reforms" and "saved the privates" in Chechnya. This, of course, can be seen as an attempt by the museum to smooth sharp corners, but the opinion that the image of the “infallible” is thus created has the right to exist.
It should be noted that a regular and open monthly event "People's Tribune" is held on the territory of the Yeltsin Center, which is hosted by an associate of the first president Gennady Burbulis. It takes place not in a museum, but in a conference hall, but even there the “spirit of Yeltsin” is present. And it's not at all invisible. During the event, which also takes place under sound accompaniment, but already with musicians, Yeltsin's image looks at the participants of the podium from the big screen.
Also noteworthy is the monotonous music in the museum itself, which either hypnotizes the museum visitor, or puts him in a special state. Sound accompaniment is, of course, an interesting solution, but completely uncharacteristic of the usual museum silence. In any case, thoughtfully examining the exhibits in silence and doing the same thing when monotonous, almost “shamanic” music “helps” think is not the same thing. It is worth adding to this the opinion of some experts who, after visiting the museum, reported that the Yeltsin Center uses neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) technologies. Whether this is so, and if so, how effective they are, is not at all clear.
In any case, sophisticated visitors do not fall under the "charm" of NLP at all, but the museum regularly conducts excursions for children. This means that it is necessary to pay attention not only to what history of the country is presented to them in this museum, but also how information is presented.
It is also impossible not to take into account the far ambiguous attitude of Russian citizens towards Boris Yeltsin himself and his activities as president of Russia. Despite the passage of time, many people hear stories about the rapid privatization of state assets at a reduced cost, about loans-for-shares auctions, about the “copier box”. Indeed, it is hard to deny that during Boris Yeltsin's rule, corruption in Russia became rampant. That is why not everyone perceives the Yeltsin Center as a presidential museum.
“I think it's a monument to corruption, I think it's a religious temple. Temple of corruption", - says the head of the Yekaterinburg fund "City without drugs" Andrey Kabanov.
Indeed, it is not so easy to answer questions about what the Yeltsin Center really is and what are the goals of the creators of the complex itself and the exposition. Obviously, its cyclopean size, or pharaonic scope, is a claim to something more than the creation of a museum of the first president of Russia, and this is, in principle, talked about in the Yeltsin Center itself. But whether the building is cult in its own way and whether the “spirit” of freedom and the way out of the “maze” hovers in this center, or are these just beautiful epithets and prejudices of critics - all these are open and interesting questions.
In any case, we need to remember that the processes that began in the USSR in the late 80s and early 90s of the 20th century were accompanied by deafening cries for freedom, and Boris Yeltsin was an active participant in perestroika.
And remember how it all ended.
PS: I would like to add that creating the image of the infallible Yeltsin is a difficult task. It can be solved only by finally depriving the people of memory. One innuendo and falsifications can not do here. For there is no hiding Yeltsin's direct connections with well-known crime bosses and "law-abiding" young oligarchs of the 90s.
Just like not to hide bad habits Yeltsin, for which the people are ready to erect such a monument to him.
On November 25, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev will open the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg, created in pursuance of a 2008 decree. Shortly before the ceremony, Lenta.ru had the opportunity to evaluate the exposition of the first memorial museum and archive complex dedicated to the first president of Russia. The creators of the museum offer their own view on the history of the country, which will surely cause polar responses.
Bright orange sweater on the ground museum stand attracts almost more attention than a huge, one and a half height, two-handed sword, located to the left of him. The sweater, unlike a VIP souvenir, was part of Boris Yeltsin's permanent wardrobe - since it was presented to him for his birthday. “To make you feel warm and comfortable in it. And his Orange color- a hint of what we lack now in Russia, ”the accompanying note says, signed“ Your Boris Nemtsov ”(apparently, by that time he was already an adviser in the apparatus of the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko).
Lack of engagement - that's what people pay attention to almost more often than to the multimedia museum stuffing of the Yeltsin Center, unprecedented in Russia, and the scale of the work done. “Of course, you understand that in a museum that is buttoned up and has passed political censorship, there would be nothing like this,” emphasizes Lyudmila Telen, deputy executive director of the Presidential Center B.N. Yeltsin. “There was no preview to officials either: you see everything first, two days before the opening.”
22 thousand square meters of joint work of a group of American museum workers from the firm of Ralph Applebaum, the team of Tatiana Yumasheva and attracted Russian leaders culture: from Erik Bulatov, the author of the panel "Freedom" (in blue on white - going into a very distant perspective) to Pavel Lungin, who came up with the basis of the museum - seven days of the 1990s and a story about each of them.
Then Mikhail Speransky under Alexander the First - and the constitution, which the tsar "could not offer to society." The Decembrist uprising and another 30 years of Russian history were placed in one period: “The next emperor made a choice in favor of unlimited autocracy and followed it until his death. The end of the reign of Nicholas I was a humiliating defeat in Crimean War and severe crisis. More attention is paid to the reforms of Alexander II, who made "an attempt to transform Russian autocracy to European political regime". According to historians, voiced by Elizaveta Boyarskaya, this emperor "died not for reforms, but for renouncing them." Nicholas II adopted the constitution - but "a short rise was interrupted by the First World War."
About the first Russian democratic government - the Provisional - not a word: immediately the Bolsheviks. “Violence became the main political tool of the post-revolutionary regime,” describes the period of Joseph Stalin. And then: “Not party leaders, but ordinary people they did everything to make this era go down in history not only with the Gulag, but also with the Dneproges, Magnitogorsk, the conquest of the Arctic, an unthinkable labor upsurge that cannot be explained by fear. You can - by faith in your country. Khrushchev "liberated society from fear." Brezhnev - “The era of stagnation. Next chance to return to civilized world the country received 20 years later, when Gorbachev came to power. The country, however, needed a leader of a different type: “Boris Yeltsin risked relying not on personal power, but on the independent choice of citizens. Thus began the history of a new, free Russia.
Here the cartoon ends and the actual story begins, to which the museum of the Presidential Center B.N. Yeltsin: not power, but choice. It all starts, as expected, with Yeltsin's speech at the 1987 plenum. Armchairs as in that hall, a tribune, and the coat of arms of the USSR on it is completely real - rescued from the 14th building of the Kremlin, which underwent reconstruction. From there he moved to the Yeltsin Center and the main exhibit of the seventh day - the resignation, "Take care of Russia": the first office of the first president - an armchair, telephones, a table. From time to time, the lights go out in the office, and that same speech is heard from the studio monitor: “I'm tired, I'm leaving.” The nuclear suitcase handed over to the successor is right there, not far away: also an original - like almost everything here, from documents to artifacts. Case - Western production, from Samsonite. I would like to hope that since the time of Boris Nikolayevich, import substitution, at least in this area, has reached one hundred percent.
The entire museum can be viewed in an hour and a half; the idea of the film director Lungin corresponds to the average size of the film. Each event is in three dimensions, as in today's cinema: here is propaganda, here is evidence, and next to it are official documents, sometimes declassified or found. If you want to dig more seriously, you will have to literally go deep into the fourth dimension: under each stand there is a sliding panel with additional materials. The creators of the museum assure that it is there that opponents of Boris Yeltsin can find a lot of what they - judging by social networks- there is not enough in advance in the Yeltsin Center: "seven bankers" and refugees, the New Year's storming of Grozny and a photocopier box, the impoverishment of people and the crimson jackets of those who for the most part remained in the 90s. “My family donated to the museum all family archive. This is a whole selection of leaflets, newspapers, clippings, photographs, books on 1991-1993, - says publicist Kirill Shulika. - Part of the materials settled in the archives of the Yeltsin Center, part - on its website, something is on display. Many brought here their artifacts from the 90s. Thus, not a Yeltsin museum turned out, but a museum of an era in which Yeltsin was one of the heroes, and the main characters were simple people. And they deserved the neighborhood in the same halls with the mighty of the world this."
There are really a lot of documents. Touching ones come across - especially if you look at them a quarter of a century later. "What do you like to play?" - ask B.N. in 1990, employees of one of Soviet magazines for children. “Lapta, football, volleyball,” Yeltsin replies. Before tennis - as well as before big politics- remained a few years.
Day two - the August putsch: a barricade in a semicircle, a video on half of the high wall and stands with personal belongings of the White House defenders: "Hotel" At the dead climber "" by the Strugatskys - a book by Vladimir Usov, one of the three who died in those days. Day three - "Unpopular measures": a hall with an empty counter - cans of birch sap, slides of seaweed salad, screens with queues, and nothing more. A little further - economic reforms. "And here interactive game"How to properly invest a voucher" - Ludmila Telen draws attention. Replay own history none of those present dared to privatize.
Away - a unique 3D installation: the three fathers of Russian economic reform - Andrey Nechaev, Anatoly Chubais, Petr Aven - talk about why everything turned out this way and not otherwise. The holograms are located behind glass, according to the optical sensation - ten or fifteen meters from the visitors: either "they are terribly far from the people", or the organizers of the Yeltsin Center represent the people's reactions quite well. But the checkered bag of the "shuttle" - the breadwinner of many - is in a separate place of honor, close and quite natural. However, the Yeltsin Center itself will have to show in the coming years how much they have mastered the principles market economy: in the case of budget financing - not only 4 billion 980 million rubles for the development of the complex, but also a two-billion loan. The center will have to give it away, earning money from the offices and other areas of the huge building, while financing it on its own own projects. At least that's how it's meant to be.
Day four - "Birth of the Constitution" in 1993 and day five - "Vote or lose" - are likely to be called the largest number disputes. First of all, the interpretation chosen by the Yeltsin Center. It is simple: do not interpret, do not evaluate even the most dramatic events. October-93 - installation: a broken control room in Ostankino, a pile of police shields, video from the streets and 127 shell casings - according to the number of dead. Elections of 1996 - dolls from the program of the same name: B.N., Gennady Zyuganov, Alexander Lebed - and a typical metropolitan edition of the mid-90s. The first Chechen one is a blood-red room, parallel to the “editorial office”: in the bullet holes there is a photo from Memorial, in the niches there are berets and a uniform from Major Vyacheslav Izmailov, who traded captured soldiers, including for ammunition. In any case, those who will equip the theme of the second Chechen war in one of the next presidential centers (and, logically, there should be at least two more: "Putin Center" and "Medvedev Center"), there will be something to start from.
The hall dedicated to the Constitution of the Russian Federation itself is another huge video wall. Here, everything according to the articles of the basic law is an island of certainty in a world devoid of interpretations. On the prohibition of discrimination based on nationality Ivan Urgant talks from the wall, Avdotya Smirnova talks about the protection of the right of private property by law. And immunity privacy Mikhail Zhvanetsky proclaims.
In the sixth hall "Presidential marathon" - the second term. With a heart operation and multi-colored oil price quotes superimposed on the view outside the window: the Yekaterinburg Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood becomes a full-fledged part of the exhibition about the man who first destroyed the Ipatiev House, and then buried royal family. And, of course, with the search for a successor - a gallery of portraits (Luzhkov, Primakov, Aksenenko ...) and the transfer of that same suitcase.
The only way out of Yeltsin's office is through the Freedom Hall. More precisely, video colonnades of freedoms: thoughts and words, meetings and associations, conscience and religion, movement, entrepreneurship. "The number of columns allows each visitor to choose a suitable fifth," the Yeltsin Center draws attention. You can laugh. And at the same time again argue about what is more suitable for Russia - a democratic horizontal or a centralized vertical path of development.
It is indisputable, however, that for the first time in long years The existence of the USSR and Russia is embodied in the Yeltsin Center complex: continuity based on the state-declared respect for the experience of the predecessor - respect embodied, formalized and impressive, like power itself. Either as two limousines of Boris Yeltsin, the first secretary of the Sverdlovsk region and the first president of Russia, placed here according to the American model, or as a natural Moscow trolleybus inscribed in the exposition, similar to the one in which the future head of state communicated with the people in the 1980s. By the way, big question, which looks more organic here.
Yekaterinburg - Moscow
