Tot'ma Museum Association

The year 1915 saw the opening of the Museum of Local Lore that was located in the building of the former theological school. Now it boasts a good collection of folk crafts, other exhibits that are of great historical and ethnographic value. The first exhibits of the museum were given by the town's residents: a plan of Tot'ma dating from 1781, a wooden table embellished with an intricate pattern carved out, an ancient brass areometer used to define brine density, and two oil portraits depicting members of the Kuskov family. Now the museum funds number more than 67,000 exhibits. The local lore museum's collections are displayed in 4 halls - an art and a historical sections, a nature department, an exhibition hall and a storeroom.

The year 1990 saw the opening of the Kuskov Memorial Flat. The museum tells the story of life of a Tot'ma-born navigator Ivan Kuskov. Tot'ma was once a powerhouse of merchant Russia. Adventurers from the town opened up trade routes to Siberia, Alaska, China and the west coast of the United States. Tot'ma's main rivals were other northern towns - Veliky Ustyug, for example, where two hundred years ago merchants who had made their money in Siberia and America built luxurious riverside residences. One Tot'ma native, Ivan Kuskov, founded Fort Ross in California in 1812, and after years in North America, retired to his birthplace along with a wife, who by some accounts was a Native American. At that time Tot'ma was a flourishing merchant centre, dealing in furs, wax, silks and salt. It is not by chance that the town's coat of arms has a black fox on it, an animal native to the Aleutian Islands off Alaska, not to northern Russia.

Unfortunately the world - famous navigator died 3 months after his arrival in the native town. Ivan Kuskov is buried on the territory of the Spaso-Sumorin monastery. A granite bust of Ivan Kuskov was erected in front of the house where the first commandant of Fort Ross spent his last years.

The official opening of a small but attractive museum with local icons took place in 1995 and was timed to the 80th anniversary of the Tot'ma Local Lore Museum. The Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God has become home to the museum. The church was erected in 1808. Its bell tower literally overshadows the main structure. In good weather, it is possible to climb to the top of the tower and enjoy a superb panorama of Tot'ma, the Sukhona, and the surrounding countryside. The icons of Sts Nicholas and John the Baptist dating from the 15th century and the icons of Feodosy Sumorin (18th century) merit special attention. Artistic needlework, wooden sculpture and plastic figures are also displayed in the museum.

The museum of Russian seafaring is housed in the next example in the series of Tot'ma masterpieces - Church of the Entry into Jerusalem that was raised in 1774-1794 with funds provided by the brothers Grigory and Peter Panov, navigators and merchants who were involved in the trade with "Russian America." Several expositions of the museum are of great interest: the display telling the story of origin and formation of the Russian navy, an exposition about Tot'ma - born merchants and their navigations in the Pacific Ocean in the second half of the 18th century, and one more display goes on to the residents of Tot'ma who took part in the Great Patriotic War and those contemporaries who served in the navy.

About a kilometre beyond the western fringe of Tot'ma the Spaso - Sumorin Monastery was founded in 1554 by Feodosy Sumorin, one of the monks of the Spaso - Prilutsky Monastery who was sent to supervise salt production in Tot'ma. Now the Savior Sumorin Monastery contains an excellent museum of folk crafts from the Tot'ma region, with hundreds of examples of traditional wooden implements for farming and household use: distaffs, swingles, pottery, tiles, crockery and articles of furniture. Most of the items kept in the museum are beautifully decorated. The collection was greatly enlarged in the 1970s and subsequently, partly as a result of an increased interest on the part of local museums.

The first exposition about the life and works of the renowned Russian poet Nikolai Rubtsov was opened in 1990 in the village of Nikolskoye located 90 km off Tot'ma. Every hall of the exposition tells the poet's life - story. The village of Nikolskoye became second home for Nikolai who was brought up in an orphanage. It is not by chance that a local orphanage housed the museum.

One of the expositions of the museum contains photographs of the local dynasties who remember the poet pretty well. Another hall shows documents and photographs of Nikolai Rubtsov, the lines from Rubtsov's poems glisten like silver all over walls.

Every year lots of tourists flock to the Memorial Museum because they cherish the history and culture of their country which N.Rubtsov belongs to.