Association of Museums of Khabarovsk Krai (AMKhK)

The non-profit organization "Association of Museums of Khabarovsk Krai". (AMKhK), was founded in April 2019 (AMKhK was founded by the N.I. Grodekov Khabarovsk Krai Museum and the Fine Arts Museum of Komsomolsk-on-Amur). Komsomolsk-on-Amur; registered with the Ministry of Justice on 14.11.2019).  

President - N.A. Markova (Deputy Director General of Khabarovsk Krai Museum named after N.I. Grodekov). N.I. Grodekov);

L.V. Kovalyova (Director of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Fine Arts Museum) is the Secretary of the AMHK and the Chairman of the AMHK Council; E.S. Veretennikova, O.M. Bozhedomova and Y.V. Belkin are the AMHK Council Members; D.V. Zemlyankin is the Chairman of the Control and Revision Commission of the AMHK.

Its main goals are: assistance in consolidation and coordination of activities of the Khabarovsk Krai museums, exchange of experience and expansion of professional connections, creation of a system of mutual information support. One of the important tasks of AMHC is development and implementation of joint socially important cultural, educational and exhibition projects with funds raised through participation in grant contests of various funds supporting nonprofit sector, as well as in contests for grants from the regional budget to SONCO of the Krai.

The Association has already united 17 museums from Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Amursk, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Sovetskaya Gavan, Vanino, Chegdomyn, Bikin, Vyazemsky, Urgal and other areas of our region. These are state district, city and town museums of local lore, one museum of fine arts, as well as two scientific and technical museums, private and departmental. Yes, they differ in status and have different capacities, but each keeps unique collections, has its own unique character, and the main thing in each work excellent specialists - museum workers. Combining resources - creative potential and attracted grant funds, AMKhK plans to implement joint exhibition and educational, inclusive and educational projects, which will provide maximum accessibility of historical and cultural heritage, stored in the museums of Khabarovsk region.

The projects, which are already in the plans, will rediscover the collections and will contribute in every way to the attractiveness of museums to residents of the region, will build a quality communication between the museum and the visitor, as well as strengthen the inter-museum connections.

Implemented AMHK projects:

1. In the regional competitive selection in 2020 for the provision of subsidies from the regional budget to socially oriented non-profit organizations AMHK won its first grant for Organizing and conducting a seminar for museum workers, "Virtual Local History," September 8-9, 2020.

The two-day seminar "Virtual Local History" is a preparatory stage before the start of work on a large-scale regional project "Virtual Local History". In the future, the project will allow using virtual reality - multimedia content with virtual tours and excursions on a single modern digital platform on the Internet to increase the level of accessibility of municipal museums.

Due to the complex epidemiological situation in the region, the seminar was held online on the platform Zoom in two levels: the first - in the format of "round table"; the second - "intellectual laboratory".

Round table "Local history: reality and virtuality" allowed to discuss the current state of local history work in the Khabarovsk region. Museum workers, regional ethnographers and scientists voiced the problem of the low level of accessibility of local history resources, especially in remote municipal districts of the region.

Intellectual laboratory, where experts in development and promotion of websites, media products, 3D virtual tours and panoramas presented best practices and examples in their presentations demonstrated to museum workers how they can be used in the usual museum activities and for the Virtual Local Lore project in particular.

The seminar "Virtual Local History" was attended by 52 employees from 16 museums (due to problems with communication and the Internet could not join colleagues from the northern districts of the region Ayano-Maysky and Tuguro-Chumikansky). The result of the seminar was a draft "road map" describing what should be a digital resource - Virtual Local History.

2. Second grant for conducting a visiting foresight session and a series of workshops "Virtual Local History. Orientation "North". AMHK won the regional competitive selection in 2021 to provide subsidies from the regional budget to socially oriented non-profit organizations.

The traveling foresight session and the series of workshops "Virtual Local History. Orientation "North" is the second stage of the Virtual Local History project development. On September 13, 2021, the Association of Museums of Khabarovsk Krai held a visiting Foresight session in Komsomolsk-on-Amur on the basis of the Museum of Fine Arts. A total of 35 people took part in the Foresight session.

The main topic of discussion at the foresight session was the problems of museums in creating visual content and promoting the museum on the Internet with their help. During the general discussion, there was a clear understanding of the importance of museums working in the digital space to promote their collections, projects and events to a wide Internet audience. Participants in the event emphasized the lack of specialists, technical means and software for working with content; they raised the question of the insufficient level of competence and professional skills of specialists who are assigned to work in municipal museums to promote information in the digital field.

Therefore, more than half of the total time of the foresight session was given to master classes by experts, who shared the secrets of practical work with widgets and digital services.

A more rich and individually focused work of experts was continued at the workshops. The workshops as museum-digital workshops were held in the municipal museums of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Amursk, and Solnechny settlement. On September 14-16, 2021 the press secretaries of the houses of culture, libraries, botanical garden and zoo joined the event along with the specialists of the municipal museums. The total number of participants of the foresight session and the series of workshops is 65 people.

In addition to practical classes, master classes, and consultations by our guest experts, over the four days of field trips, we also took photos and videos of museum halls and gems of collections for future video clips. The photo and video content will be about municipal museums, their collections, exhibitions, and offers for visitors.

3. The most significant in 2021 was a joint sociocultural traveling project of AMCK and Grodekovo Museum - "Museum Tour.

Project goal: increasing the level of accessibility of unique natural, historical and cultural values - museum exhibits for residents of Khabarovsk Krai, especially for children!

Project Resources:

Team - museum specialists (23 people)

Touring case - stand exhibitions and with original exhibits; museum programs - guided tours, museum activities and games for children, master classes and master shows; Museum publications - catalogs of collections and exhibitions, albums and collections of articles.

Finances - own earned funds; regional budget (reserve fund); sponsorship (RMK; Urgalugol).

From April to September 2021, the project visited nine municipal districts of Khabarovsk Krai: Khabarovsk, Nanaysky, Verkhnebureinsky, Vyazemsky, Bikinsky, Lazo, Amursky, Solnechny, and Komsomolsky. Programs were held at 13 cultural institutions.

The total number of project participants - 2250 people, 95% of them - students.