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From the History of Vyoshensky Theatre

80 years ago, in 1936, a theatre of Cossack collective farm youth was founded. It was of great success with the public and was known far beyond the upper Don region.

In the Centre of the Recent History Documentation of the Rostov Region there are Bureau meeting minutes of the Rostov Region Communist Party Committee of December 11, 1938. On that day the first item on the agenda was “About the second anniversary of Vyoshensky Theatre of Cossack Collective Farm Youth”.

The operative part stated “considerable success of Vyoshensky Theatre established two years before under the help of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov, Deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet, a writer. During the two years, the Theatre showed 10 premieres, staged 200 spectacles to cater for over 70 thousand spectators, mainly collective farmers from the Don stanitsas and villages.” Then it goes that “for the purpose of communication with broader collective farm public for putting up theatre productions it is necessary to apportion a lorry. To award the best theatrical workers 10 thousand rubles must be allotted.”

The Rostov Exhibition Committee was ordered “to render a maximum assistance to Vyoshensky Theatre of Cossack Collective Farm Youth in their preparations for participation in the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.”

In 2007, in the building of the former theatre, there was opened the Excursion and Exhibition Centre “People’s House” of the National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve. Exhibitions of the best home and foreign museums are shown here, a theatrical studio of the Museum-Reserve works, scientific and practical conferences, seminars, “round table” meetings, thematic recitals, concerts, presentations, museum classes, contests, master-classes and lots of other interesting and important events take place here.

Lyudmila Razogreyeva