History on the stands

In the era of information technologies, when by means of PC everybody can peep into any of the world's museums, "live" museum exposition, like an exhibition at large, remains very attractive. It is the way a human person is made that a virtual exposition cannot replace the fullness of emotions one experiences when crossing a museum threshold and feeling one's personal belonging to the events.

More than 65-year-long history of AREC has preserved for the next generations in the collection of real objects and documents.

On August 1, 2001, on the day of 62nd anniversary of the Exhibition, the ARMA-EPEA-AREC Museum was opened. Its exposition widely represented the materials on history of the exhibition business in Russia, AREC past, present and plans for the future.

The Museum has a small area - around 200 m2 and includes the lobby and five small, though cozy halls. For this reason, its founders have made everything to maximally use its areas. Chief artist, AREC laureate Alexander Kazansky has created an original design of the halls that allowed to accommodate at the stands, turnstiles and show-windows a great number of displays, documents, diplomas, personal things of the Exhibition workers.

Figuratively speaking, members of a large creative workteam headed by T.V. Bitkova, I.V. Dotsenko, N.I. Bobrovskaya, G.I. Kasitskaya, N.B. Mozhayeva, S.L. Niselevich, O.V. Timofeyeva helped to fill the halls with the contents.

Now back to the Lobby. It is a universal exposition room intended for changing of expositions of various subject orientations. Here the visitors get acquainted with the unique autolithography "Near Main Pavilion" (1955) of Emmanuil Bernstein, artist of national and world renown.

On the walls are pictures of V. Velichko, V. Karmolin, A. Fedorov painted at various times and depicting day and night landscapes of APEA-AREC. Here one may find map-boards representing the genuine creators of the Exhibition history - war and labor veterans who have put in creation of the Moscow attraction all their talent, enthusiasm, knowledge and energy.

The attention of visitors is inevitably attracted by the map-board with unique photographs of pavilions of the period of Exhibition of Agriculture. In the architectural plane, they as a rule communicated the national hue of each of the Union republics. Many of them are already absent in the Exhibition territory - some were rebuilt, others - draped with modern finishing materials, still others - taken down during the numerous "organization measures" conducted in the country and at the Exhibition.

The samples of decorative design of the garden-park zone, which takes approximately half of AREC territory, - a pleasantly bubbling small fountain, wonderful bronze sculpture "Maternity" - all this helps to raise the visitors' spirits before review of the Museum main exposition.

The most interesting things in the Hall:

Miniature sculpture of Valentina Mukhina "A Worker and a Woman-farmer".

The sculpture was first installed before the Soviet pavilion in 1937 at the World Exhibition in Paris, in 1939 - before the Northern gate to the USSR Exhibition of Agriculture, in 1967 - before the Moscow Pavilion.