The first in Russia museum of phonographs and gramophones of the Honored Artist of Russia, clown and trainer of bears Vladimir Deryabkin, opened on April 14, 1998

Passing the gallery

Text: Vera Tsalobanova

A photo: Mikhail Manin

Magazine: N6 (40) 2000

In St. Petersburg, it would seem, it is impossible to surprise anyone. For three hundred years since the founding of the city at the behest of Peter the Great, wonders from all over the world were brought here. Some of them were openly displayed on embankments, in gardens and parks, and some were kept in the hiding places of public and private collections, about which there are so many legends that there is probably no place for new ones. However, the first in Russia museum of phonographs and gramophones of the Honored Artist of Russia, clown and trainer of bears Vladimir Deryabkin, which opened on April 14, 1998, can also be considered toAnswering machine The acquaintance begins with an answering machine: “An empty wallet speaks to you. From these gramophones, Deryabkin’s saddle moved to the side again. He bought a new gramophone and went to the circus. If you want to see something you have never seen anywhere, come.”The beginning of the melody It is known that man is a style. Deryabkin strikes with a variety of styles, starting with the peculiarities of speech, the national Cossack clothes - the dress of St. George resembles a medal to the Order of Merit for the Fatherland of the second degree, and ending with the most secluded corner of his apartment. The owner of the museum as if descended from the canvas of Boris Kustodiev "Moscow tavern" (1916), taking with him a gramophone standing on the counter and, without changing the image of the Cossack sex, for thirty years the circus life created a "country of gramophones", which is now known from Korea to Germany. The vice of the people of our time — to appear, and not to be — is completely alien to Deryabkin. He lives among his own ideas about the world. The collection itself seems to be suggested to him from above. Once in childhood, in the noisy Rostov railway station, the keen eye of a little restless boy snatched from the pile of things a clumsy gramophone - a newcomer from another, unknown life. Then Vladimir could not even imagine that the miracle machine would appear again in his life.Destruction of stereotypes Here, everything breathes, sounds, sings, and not only because the owner is a musically gifted person (he writes and performs songs with a guitar). The obstinate Australian parrot Erema, who became the first keeper of unique mechanical devices that Tolstoy, Stanislavsky, Lemeshev, Chaliapin could use, plays a significant role. The hospitable host greets you in the office, where the style of the St. Petersburg music salon with the dominant harmonium is sustained, next to it is the palace music box, on the contrary - the English clock of the XVIII century. A stern empire sofa stretched majestically along the wall, two twin armchairs on either side. In the center of the room under a bronze chandelier littered with photographs, albums, magazines round table on a powerful "lion's paw", covered with an old carpet tablecloth. To the left of the entrance glass door there is an Empire style secretary. On the wall above the sofa there are round paintings-medallions with images of Don open spaces, grazing horses. On the contrary - a picturesque portrait of a laughing white clown with sad eyes. Maybe under the mask of makeup - the owner of the museum ...Musical surprises Immediately beyond the threshold of the hall surprises and surprises begin. You are greeted by the bravura march of Dunaevsky from the movie "Circus", accompanied by a joyful whistle of a parrot. When you find yourself in a room where a wagon coupe and a marble fireplace peacefully coexist with carefully laid logs, you feel an amazing contrast: longing for touring life with its flickering stations and a craving for home comfort. Suddenly the music is interrupted and the voice of the ringmaster announces: "a collection of phonographs and gramophones of Vladimir Deryabkin!". The wall-screen soars upwards, dozens of spotlights flare up. And now the wide-open trumpet flowers began to shine, with nearly a hundred multi-colored gramophones. Slowly the knob spring spins up, resuscitating the voices of the old records and introducing us to the shaky world of memories of our grandparents, smelling of wegetal and lavender.Delight With a sinking heart, I consider exposure - a combination of black and white. Vladimir explains: on white, the soul is clearly visible, and childishly, excitedly talks about every subject as an old acquaintance. He saved more than three hundred samples of both large and miniature wonder-machines of various brands and modifications. In the collection there are "Zimmerman", "Burchard", "Rebikov". Rare specimens from the late 19th and early 20th centuries from America, Germany, Poland, France, and England live in this "country". There are altogether piece copies, such as, for example, a gramophone, specially made by order of Count Vorontsov. The trumpet of this marvelous mechanism is made in the form of a young woman reclining on a mahogany curbstone with ashy hair loose on bare shoulders. The main decoration of the museum is an exquisitely inlaid bar organ, reminiscent of Klotsk Petersburg. Vladimir brought it from Krasnodar and managed to restore amazing, resembling organ, furs. The collector collects not only whole objects, the value is each fragment - a case of precious wood, a fragment of stained glass on the door in the style of "modern", a fancifully curved bronze handle with a faded opal.PosleslovieHow does an apartment turn into a museum? The paths of this long process are inscrutable. Far from everyone dares to turn their private territory into an exposition. Collecting begins at ease, drawing in unnoticed, and then ... Someone becomes self-contained (and this is inevitable, because gathering is intimate), and someone turns his passion into a show. And the scope of private housing is not able to limit the extroversion of its owner. This is how it happens. And the apartment, in fact, no longer belongs to itself.