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Winners of the Contest “Our Sholokhov” Study the History of the Don Cossacks

History is said to be better studied on the scene. The Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov provided such an opportunity for the winners of the creative contest “Our Sholokhov”. During May 1-2, 2019, the young admirers of the talent of the great writer, made a journey through the cities of the Rostov Region and learned a lot about the past of their homeland: from the everyday life and the Don Cossack traditions to the most distant periods of our region development.

The journey began from Stanitsa Starocherkasskaya, the former capital of the Don Cossacks during 1644–1805. The Starocherkassk Historical Architectural Museum-Reserve founded on the initiative of M.A.Sholokhov in 1970, became a keeper of the Cossack olden history. The children visited the palace of Yefremov atamans and learned, that the biographies of the well-known rebels – Pugachov, Razin, Bulavin were associated with Cherkassk. In the Military Resurrection Cathedral they heard old Cossack songs and admired the unique iconostasis of the mid-XVIII century.

In the modern southern capital of the country the students were attracted by the collection of icons, paintings, graphics and sculptures shown in the Rostov Regional Museum of Fine Arts. In the Azov Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve they observed a rich paleontological collection, where the earliest exhibit was 250 million years old. The students learned that the Museum is rightly proud of the unique skeletons of dynoterium (inhabited the Azov territories 8 million years ago), two trogonterium mammoths (which geological age is 700–800 thousand years), Caucasian Elasmothers (1.3 – 1.4 million years old). Interesting finds drew attention of the young visitors: trogonter beaver, Gromov elephant, a horned antelope, Liventsov horse and Azov giraffe. They became known to science due to the fact of finding their bones for the first time in the Don land.

The journey into the distant history of the Don country ended with a visit to the Archaeological Museum-Reserve “Tanais”. The antique city named after the Tanais River (Don) for nearly eight centuries had been playing an important role in the economic and political life of the Black Sea coast cities. The young visitors learned about the life of this city while observing the unique “open air” exposition consisting of the mostly studied sites of the settlement. The students saw with their

own eyes the results of the long painstaking work of the archaeologists and learned what excavations are and what conclusions the scientists make based on the finds.

The children thanked the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov for the opportunity to broaden their horizons and deepen their knowledge of culture, Don Cossack traditions, archaeology and paleontology. The journey provided the children with a holistic view of the Don history.

Olga Karghina