Yaroslavl Da Vinci built a tourist paradise from an abandoned village

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The active pensioner has opened 19 museums in restored merchant estates since 2013 and plans to increase this number to 30. The RIA Novosti correspondent visited Tolbukhino and found out what attracts tourists to the unknown village.

One in the field is not a warrior - this is not about Vladimir Stolyarov. The former builder has lived all his life in Yaroslavl, but in retirement decided not to sit idle, but to start saving cultural monuments in nearby villages. His choice fell on the village of Tolbukhino.

What do you want here?

Only 20 kilometers from Yaroslavl, but what a striking contrast! There are few people in Tolbukhino, but there are buildings of amazing beauty almost at every step. Most are in a deplorable state, with the exception of private residential buildings and museums created over the past four years by Vladimir Stolyarov.

The enthusiast appeared in Tolbukhino suddenly. Initially, the plans included the rescue of the neighboring village of Velikoe, where, according to his calculations, about 200 old buildings are under threat of destruction. But fate decreed otherwise, Stolyarov says.

When I retired, I came to the administration of the Yaroslavl region and said: “Give me some village. There are millions of crumbling monuments all over Russia”.

"The deputy head of the administration answers:" Look at Tolbukhino. " I arrived, saw a fallen house on the main street and asked whose it was. It turned out that there used to be a shop of the Raypotrebsoyuz here. I asked to sell the house to me. We quickly restored it and opened the first museum there,”says Vladimir with pride.

Stolyarov recalls that at first the local population was wary of him. But when they saw that tourists were drawn to the village, they changed their anger to mercy.

“The first question the locals asked me was:“What do you want here at all? Well, destroyed houses are falling, but what do you want?"

And now the children on the streets greet me. This means that the families began to speak well of me, and my grandmothers also tell me: “Vladimir Ivanovich, we walk in the evenings, admiring the buildings,” he says.

Excursions to drive - not to weed potatoes

In addition to moral support, the museum worker does not receive tangible help from the local population. Even Stolyarov has to take guides from Yaroslavl: among the residents of Tolbukhino, there were no people willing to show tourists the sights for three hours.

“One of the problems of the countryside, and of the country as a whole, I think that people have no desire to earn money. I asked the local librarian to conduct excursions, because sometimes groups from Vologda and Ivanovo come unexpectedly. Her phones were printed on the posters. A group came from Cherepovets, they call her, and she: "Oh, I have business there, I need to sprinkle potatoes." Therefore, unfortunately, I still bring guides from Yaroslavl,”Stolyarov laments.

The pensioner conducts most of the excursions himself. Despite the lack of specialized education, Stolyarov reads a lot and tries to supplement his stories with amusing details, sometimes, as he admits, invented. So far, there are permanent employees only in the Museum of Marshal Tolbukhin - the main pride of the village. Previously, the museum huddled in a local school, but now it occupies an entire merchant's house.

“I asked the head of the settlement to give us Shelepov's merchant estate. They repaired at our own expense, I gave more exhibits - and the Museum of Marshal Tolbukhin was already opened in the estate. The problem is that both museum employees are teachers. A group of tourists arrives, but they are not allowed to leave their classes,”says Stolyarov.

Family support, inspiration from Greece

In addition to the difficulties with personnel, we also have to solve difficult financial problems. Stolyarov spent about 15 million rubles on restoring estates for museums and collecting exhibits. The pensioner says that he took this money from family savings and sold part of the property. However, he believes that all the expenses will pay off.

“Honestly, only my wife, an entrepreneur, helps. Although even she often says that “it's enough to bury the money” in Tolbukhino. But I will make sure that a million tourists come here a year."

I was in Greece - there all the statues were taken out by the British, but the Greeks still lead excursions, show some stones and say, they say, here Aphrodite went, and here - Poseidon! I was so angry. Are we worse?

With the visits of tourists, things are really not bad - people come to Tolbukhino not only from Yaroslavl, but also from neighboring cities, the museum worker is proud.

“In winter there are many pensioners, in summer they are at their dachas, and now they come to visit us. There are also many schoolchildren. We have something good for them - we conduct a lesson in the museum, starting with paleontology, from the time of the dinosaurs, then - the Bronze Age, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the First. Schools already know about us, they even come from Moscow, but mostly from Cherepovets, Vologda, from Ivanovo,”Stolyarov says.

“They call me from Komi, from Arkhangelsk:“We have exhibits, collected works, newspapers, we want to bring them to Tolbukhino”. I answer: "Bring in." The main thing is that they learn about us on the sly,”says Stolyarov.

By the day of the Navy last summer, Vladimir Ivanovich and his assistants have built a whole flotilla for local children. Now a galley for eight is standing on a frozen river. But the pensioner's main dream is to restore the local Church of the Holy Trinity in the center of Tolbukhino. So far, only the chapel has been put in order, because a fire station is located in the church itself.