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18 April - International Day of Monuments and Historical Sites

In 1983, on the initiative of the Assembly of the International Council for the Protection of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Center declared April 18 as the International Day for Monuments and Sites. The initiators of the creation of such a holiday were architects, scientists, restorers, employees of government agencies involved in restoration activities. One of the most important tasks of UNESCO is the preservation and restoration of monuments that represent the cultural heritage of mankind. Its ideology is based on the fact that these places are of interest not only for one particular country where the monument is geographically located, but also for the whole world. The essence of the celebration is to enrich the knowledge of a particular historical heritage, to accustom the young generation to the love of their Country, to study the history of the places where a person was born and raised, and also to encourage society to protect monuments and historical places.

The structure of the Sholokhov Museum-Reserve includes 36 monuments of federal significance and 40 regional ones. Each of them has its own story, each is in its own way unique. The first object that was restored during the writer's life is the Estate, where he was born in 1905.

The Estate is located in the farm Kruzhilinsky (at that time the farm was called Kruzhilin). At the end of the XIX century, there were 200 yards in it. In the center there was located the square - "stanichka". Along the perimeter, it was surrounded by the courtyards of wealthy Cossacks, trading shops, including the Estate, which was acquired in 1903 by Alexander Sholokhov the father of the writer to-be. In this house, in May 1905, Misha Sholokhov was born.

The history of the house is interesting. It was built presumably in the 1870s. According to some sources, before the father of the writer bought it, this house belonged to the merchant Abaymakov. According to other information – to the sacristan of the local church. In 1910, the Estate was bought by Shutov. In 1920, it was nationalized and the house was a reading room. Since 1930 it was used for housing. In the postwar years, the house was temporarily moved to another place. And in 1971 it was returned to its previous place. At that time, the ground floor (semi-underground floor) was not destroyed, which allowed it to be restored to its previous size with almost no loss. Until 1978, it was a residential building. In 1979, repair and restoration work was carried out and in 1980, when Mikhail Sholokhov was 75 years old, the museum was opened - the first one in the life of the writer.

On the one hand, this house is unique in that as the writer was born in it, on the other hand, it represents historical and ethnographic value, as it is a striking example of a typical Cossack dwelling specific to the Upper Don Cossacks at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.   

This is a three-room house (“kuren”) on a stone ground floor under a four-pitched roof, covered with reeds. The walls of the bars are covered with clay on shake and whitewashed with lime. The cold hall (“seni”) is attached to the southeast facade. Entrance to the ground floor is carried out through the vestibule from the street and by a wooden ladder located in the warm hall. The house was heated by a stove. On the ground floor, where utility rooms and the kitchen are located, there is a Russian stove for cooking. The architectural and artistic appearance of the house is formed by the reed roof characteristic of the area, single-leaf shutters, relief carvings of rectangular laconic architraves. The expressiveness of the facades of the house is complemented by the coloristic traditional for the Upper Don - against the background of bleached facades, the ocher color of wooden elements. The interiors were also preserved. The walls were whitewashed in the living rooms. The wooden ceiling lining is made of profiled boards and painted with white. The floors in the residential part are wooden, painted with brown paint. In the ground floor, the wattle-and-daub floors are “earthen”. The interiors are filled with genuine objects that belonged to the writer’s family. They also reflect the period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and provide an opportunity to experience the era. This object acquaints the museum visitors with the way of life of the Upper Don Cossacks, which was later described in the immortal novels "And Quiet Flows the Don", "Virgin Soil Upturned".

Preservation of historical and cultural monuments is a very important and necessary matter, because our culture, traditions and values ??are preserved and passed to the next generations. This is the idea that was based in this holiday - the International Day of Monuments and Sites.

Valentina Kabanova