The Traditional Boats of the Belozersky Territory Museum

The material has been collected for more than half a century. The idea of opening the museum belongs to Mikhail Nikolayevich Stolyarov, who knows well how important the realities of rural life are for city dwellers today, because they are irrevocably leaving. Mikhail Stolyarov is a native of the village of Megra, which was flooded during the construction of the Volga-Balta. For many years he collected household items from the Belozersky Territory.

“As a teenager, I walked eight kilometers to school,” says Mikhail Nikolaevich. “It was the end of the 60s, people were already starting to scatter from the villages, and we stopped to rest in the abandoned houses. Of course, we found a lot of interesting things there. I am a hereditary woodcarver and craftsman. I learned not only from my father and grandfather, but also from those things that suddenly turned out to be unnecessary for their owners. I also knew many carving masters; I could not watch how what was done with their hands disappeared,” says Mikhail Nikolaevich. Soon, the house of Stolyarovs in the village of Maeksa turned into a kind of museum depository: antique furniture, chests, spinning wheels, samovars and other peasant utensils filled a barn, an attic and even the living rooms. Then a new hobby of the owner appeared – wooden boats.

Today the museum is located in an antique merchant barn in Belozersk; the guided tours and workshops on making one-day spoons, making fire, etc. are held there.

In the summer, if you wish, you can go boating on the Maeksa River. The museum is listed as “Creative Workshop of Traditional Boats of the Belozersky Territory.”