JINR Museum

Science, poetry and nature at the Boblovo Festival

On 14 September, the staff of the JINR Museum of History of Science and Technology attended the traditional Mendeleev Festival at the invitation of Boblovo-Shakhmatovo-Tarakanovo Museum-Reserve Directorate. This annual festival, held in this picturesque location near the town of Klin, attracts hundreds of tourists of all ages, especially schoolchildren and students.

The goal of this event is to use the museum space for a lively dialogue between scientists and residents of Moscow and the Moscow Region, to share new discoveries in the field which Dmitry Ivanovich dedicated his life to, to engage young festival participants with new ideas and at the same time, to teach them to respect history and to take pride in our past.

This is the third time, the JINR Museum of History of Science and Technology has given lectures at the estate and the first time, it has carried out experiments. This time, we invited the members of the UC lecture group Alexey Voinov (FLNR), Dmitry Dryablov (VBLHEP) and Doctor of Physics and Mathematics and Chairman of the JINR Museum Council Evgeny Shabalin. The representatives from Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Mendeleev Lyceum No. 10 and Mendeleev Russian Chemical Technology University participated in the Festival programme alongside our group.

Alexey Voinov told the participants about new chemical elements synthesized at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions. We presented Director of the Museum-Estate with a book about Yu.Ts.Oganessian, autographed by him. "This is truly a royal gift," she responded gratefully. Dmitry Dryablov's demonstration of experiments with liquid nitrogen generated great interest. Evgeny Shabalin's report was met with applause. He has written six books of fiction and dozens of short stories, including a story about D.I.Mendeleev's hot air balloon flight. Evgeny Shabalin read it with great artistry to the Festival participants. They appreciated the author's original concept to use his creative imagination to recreate missing details of a real event. Our hospitable colleagues gave us the opportunity to visit not only the exhibition in the house where the D.I.Mendeleev Museum is located, but also the Beketov-Blok House Museum, newly built in 2001. The wonderful tour guide Valery Klavdievich reeled off Alexander Blok's poems like a cornucopia. And we listened, captivated. Science, poetry and nature are closely intertwined in this unique estate.

It's gratifying to know that our inter-museum relations strengthen, develop and serve the cause of education, as well as preserve the memory of this brilliant Russian scientist. We look forward to a return visit from our colleagues from Boblovo soon that will result in the signing of an agreement on mutual exchange of tour groups and joint events.

Nadezhda KAVALEROVA