Museum of Carpentry Tools in Pushkino

The founder of the museum, Oleg Ivanovich Olenev, after graduating from the Institute has been working at the Design Institute as a design engineer for 32 years. During his school years, there was a craving for work not only with the head, but also with the hands. The first experience showed that the most useful material for this aim is wood; you can make almost anything from it! At first, he used his father’s instrument, which he brought back from Germany after the Second World War. Later he began to buy tools, because a diverse collection of tools is needed for different types of work. So, the accumulation of tools began, but only for the work. At some point, I realized that the tool has its own aesthetic, and since then I began to buy carpentry tools not only for the work, but also for the “soul”.

First, the instruments were purchased at flea markets in Russia, later at flea markets in Europe, and recently at international auctions. One day, the number of old carpentry tools became so large that in 2012 the collection of planes was listed in the Russian Record Book as the largest in our country. When Oleg Ivanovich saw his own collection in its entirety, he immediately thought: after all, someone else should see it! So, the idea to open a museum of carpentry tools arose. Nowadays, the museum’s exposition, which has been collected for about 30 years, is available for visitors and is located in a special place, built for this aim, in Pushkino.

The museum’s collection includes about 3,000 tools from all over the world that have contributed to the development of crafts related to wood processing; these countries are the USA, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Japan, Russia, and so on. This is the only unique collection of ancient tools in Russia that is listed in the Russian Record Book.