#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. In the TLLM funds, more than 92 thousand museum items are stored. And the number one is the shaman’s tambourine. The unique exhibit entered the museum collection in September 1953 and the next year it will celebrate a round date in this status.
Museum workers published information about the rarity. The symbolic exhibit number one, unlike other tambourines, has 14 flags. The attribute was made by a nameless shaman from a larch shell, covered in the skin of a male wild deer. On the inside, the rims are decorated with vertical black and red stripes denoting the northern lights. An iron cross – a holder surrounded by an iron plate is attached by the leather straps. Outside, in diameter, a black line is drawn, repeating the shape of a tambourine and black dots. On the inside, divided into four sectors, deer and people are depicted. According to the museum, applying a drawing inside means that the shaman and its tambourine protects people and deer. In addition to the description, the documents preserved information that the acquisition cost the museum 10 rubles. For this money in 1953, you could buy three kilograms of white bread and one kilo of black…
The Taimyr Museum of Local Lore’s collection is famous not only for its unique ethnographic and natural scientific collections. In its funds, for example, the Great Britain new king Charles III’s father gift is stored. In 1995, when the husband of Elizabeth II was called Prince Philip and wore the title of Duke of Edinburgh, he visited Taimyr. The World Wildlife Fund’s president (from 1981 to 1996) arrived to inspect the Russian Arctic animal and plant world protection. From Moscow, the high guest first flew to Hatanga, then to Tiksi and Dikson.
In that trip in honor of the Big Arctic reserve opening, prince Philip gave the sculpture of the Indian with a trefoil in his hands to its first director Vladimir Badukin. Trefoil is a symbol of the Green Leaf – the World Organization for the Nature Monuments Save. According to the museum description, the object dated in 1993 is cast from metal and installed on a wooden stand, to which a sign is attached. One of the inscriptions on it reads: “To people of Taimyr for their commitment and vision in establishing the Great Arctic reserve”. The reserve director’s wife Valentin Badukina handed the prince Philip’s gift to the Taimyr Museum.
The Taimyr Museum of Local Lore 85th anniversary’s main celebrations are scheduled for early October. On 6-8 October, the Under One Sky: Full Immersion festival will be held in Dudinka. Museums from Murmansk, Arhangelsk, Chukotka, Hakassia and Tyva were invited to participate in it.
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Text: Varvara Sosnovskaya, photo: Taimyr Museum of Local Lore
