Virtual tour of the besieged museum "And the Muses Were not Silent ..." available on the Presidential Library’s portal

A virtual tour of the museum “And the Muses Were not Silent ...” is presented on the Presidential Library’s portal. This is the only museum of its kind that is dedicated to the culture and art of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War. It was created by the teachers and pupils of the D. D. Shostakovich school № 235, where it is located at the present time. The uniqueness of the museum is in the fact that from a school, amateur, it has grown into a serious and world-famous research center. 

The name of the museum "And the Muses Were not Silent ..." was invented by the soloist of the St. Petersburg Theater of Musical Comedy Anatoly Korolkevich, it refutes the ancient Roman saying: “In times of war the Muses are silent”.

The constantly updated exposition illustrates the cultural life of the besieged city, the tragic fate of Leningraders, the path to spirituality through books, music or theater. The museum displays authentic materials from the siege time related to theatrical performances, art exhibitions, the work of libraries and cinemas. Among them are posters, schedules of front-line propaganda teams, books published in 1941-1944, scripts and scores, according to which they performed during the siege. The museum features personal belongings of Olga Bergholz, Karl Eliasberg, Dmitry Shostakovich and many other prominent Leningraders.   

The Presidential Library provides a virtual tour of the museum "And the Muses Were not Silent ...", which is available for free download and can be used as part of educational events. The project, accompanied by the head of the museum "And the Muses Were not Silent ..." Olga Prutt, allows to remotely walking through the exhibition halls and discover new heroic pages of the history of our city.

Virtual projects are an actively developing area of activity of the Presidential Library, thanks to which the electronic repository, along with paper, photo, audio and video materials, is added with exhibits from exhibitions, items from museum collections.

More than fifteen temporary exhibitions are available for remote visits, which at different times were opened in the Presidential Library. They are available on the library’s portal at the link: https://www.prlib.ru/about_exhibition.