Karl May School History Museum

The Karl May School History Museum is located in the historic building of the gymnasium and its main goal is to preserve the historical memory of the glorious educational institution. Once upon a time, more than a century and a half ago, thanks to the will and energy of the German teacher Karl May, a unique School of human spirit and creativity emerged. Many years later, in the middle of the 1960s., the first museum of the school appeared on the initiative of teachers and students. In many ways it bore the ideological stamp of its time, but it was then, for the first time in the new history, that a tribute was paid not only to the Soviet but also to the pre-revolutionary period of the school, photographs of Karl May, the May beetle (the school’s emblem), an album of the school’s interiors from 1914 were given. However, the excessive “enthusiasm for local history” in the opinion of higher authorities was not to the liking of the heads of the district department of public education. The school museum fell into disrepair. The final blow to the museum was dealt in 1976 when the school was catastrophically moved to a new building on line 13. Almost all exhibits of the museum were lost or destroyed.

In 1990, with the blessing of Academician D.S. Likhachev, the future director of the museum, N.V. Blagovo, in co-authorship with D.S. Likhachev, wrote the first modest book about the history of the school, which did not go unnoticed by all connoisseurs of Russian history. Thanks to a happy coincidence, this book fell into the hands of Rafael Midhatovich Yusupov, head of the St. Petersburg Institute of Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Rafael Midhatovich offered Nikita Vladimirovich selfless help in organising the museum. On a clear cool day on 12 May 1995, the oldest student of the school, Academician D.S. Likhachev, opened the memorial plaque, the bas-relief of the May beetle, revived by sculptor S. N. Smirnov and the museum itself. A plaque still hangs on the building commemorating the 6th Special Artillery School’s stay here.

By the time it opened, the museum’s exhibition was a few modest stands and display cases in a small enclosed area of the room. It is hard to imagine now how much work a group of enthusiasts led by N.V. Blagovo had to do in order to breathe life into the museum space, to fill it with evidence of times gone by, to collect and prepare invaluable photographs, books, personal belongings, school equipment for exhibition: personal belongings of the school’s third headmaster A.L. Lipovsky, an original historical photograph of the four headmasters of the gymnasium, a restored laboratory cabinet, authentic instruments from the chemistry and physics rooms.

Thanks to the constant support of the management of the St. Petersburg Institute of Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the enthusiasm of the keepers of the “May” traditions, the museum has undergone fundamental repairs to recreate the historical interior of the Pedagogical Council meeting room and the school headmaster’s office, and the facade of the building has been restored to its original appearance with the historical inscription “K. May’s Gymnasium and Real School”.

Thanks to the main keepers of the school history – N.V. Blagovo, M.T. Valiev, A.M. Bukhalova, former pupils – today the exposition consists of 25 showcases and 46 stands and reflects all the main stages of the 160-year history of the school. The number of the museum’s funds is now more than 10000 items: objects, documents, photographs, audio and video cassettes, compact discs.

The museum is constantly working on the production of new publications – seven issues of booklets containing information on the development of the museum have been prepared. A large volume of excursion work is carried out here. For 24 years it was visited by more than 25 thousand people from 130 cities of 28 countries, 69 issues, books “School on Vasilievsky Island”, “The Roerich Family in the K.May Gymnasium”, “The Sixth Special Artillery School”, “In the Service of the Fatherland”.