Tourists and townspeople can now get acquainted with the history of Kuzbass by traveling by public transport. Cultural and historical routes with audio guides appeared in Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk.
They were created within the framework of the Kultura national project. And for the first time in Russia, not only professional historians and local historians, but also amateurs – residents participate in such an urban project. They share their stories about the cities they live in.
The first unusual trip through the streets of the regional center was made by bus number 51. The route connecting the left-bank part of the city with the right bank of the Tom, started from the square of the old circus at the corner of Kirov Street and Sovetsky Prospekt.
Once upon a time, aerial acrobats performed here, under the dome of a building that did not exist, and clowns, jugglers and trainers performed in the arena. This was recalled by the performance organized by the organizers of the Identical Kemerovo (i-Da Kemerovo) project.
The bus moves off to the sound of a circus march. On the way, funny inspectors hand out tickets to passengers, offering “from under the floor” unique author’s postcards with views of the old city.
At the bus stop near the university, the fighters of the student construction brigade enter. To the sound of a guitar, the bus moves past the first sleeping area in the city. Directly to the Mikhailo Volkov Square – a miner who discovered a coal deposit on Gorely Gora.
Every stop is a page of history. The past comes to life thanks to an audio guide created on the Artefact platform (a project of the Russian Ministry of Culture, which is part of the Digital Culture federal project of the Culture national project).
23 sound tracks lasting from five minutes to half an hour were recorded by well-known local historians and ordinary residents of the city. Historians, librarians, amateur guides, social activists, schoolchildren and pensioners collected information bit by bit. In short, everyone who had something to share. Kuzbass became the first region in the country where a project of this kind has become truly nationwide.
“We were sent the stories of families, but it turned out that these are the stories of our wonderful fellow countrymen, many of whom moved science, industry and culture forward,” said Maxim Goncharenko, head of the press service of the transport company, the author of an audio guide for the first cultural and historical route.
Here is one such story. Engineer Ivan Lokhansky in the 20s of the last century invented a method of coking coal, which began to be used by all coke-chemical enterprises of the country. And he also created the first amateur theater in Kemerovo.
“The project is very important – both for Kuzbass and for Russia as a whole. It allows residents to explore their city with the help of seemingly non-cultural areas such as public transport,” says Oleg Rakitov, director-coordinator of social and cultural programs at VEB.RF – The bus became not just a means of transportation from point A to point B, but a platform for studying the history of the place where you live, getting to know the townspeople and guests of the city with it. When we tested the route, the drivers also did their bit, adding a lot of interesting details to the story about this or that stop. “
The platform will continue to be filled with content. At least the residents of Kemerovo themselves have such a desire. There are already proposals to organize thematic bus routes, including those under the name “Alternative Kemerovo”.
And in Novokuznetsk, where competitions and brainstorming sessions were held for everyone who wants to participate in the project, forty audio guides have already been developed on the four most popular bus routes. Within the framework of the project “Reopen the city anew” they talk about the history of Novokuznetsk – the city of metallurgists, its records and the present day. And also – they make him feel his soul.
Read the full text in the next issue of Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Read all the texts of the story “Rest and Tourism in Russia” here.
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