Modern Museums of the Russian Village: Production of Rurality by Ex-Urban Residents

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the ways in which an image of the Russian village is constructed in today’s private museums that are located in rural areas and that are established by ex-urban residents. We take the center for ethnic/cultural tourism “Tygydym Village” and the museum complex “Museum Uchma” (Yaroslavl region, Russia) as cases for comparison, which lets us highlight both indicative differences between them and a number of common features typical of this type of cultural institution. Among those are the emphasis on the collective image of the village, the “anthropological” focus of the exposition, the orientation towards the external visitor, the attitude towards emotional impact, and others. We argue that museums of the type play an important role in the production of representations of the “village” which go in line with contemporary trends both in Russia and elsewhere.