The most beloved and long-awaited holiday - New Year - is accompanied by pleasant efforts to find gifts for relatives and friends and decorating the Christmas tree. Dressing a New Year tree with beautiful balls, bells, garlands and tinsel, even adults again feel like children.
This ritual also gives children a lot of joy and laughter, but few people know that there is a real museum of Christmas decorations “Klinsky Compound”, where you can not only buy original Christmas tree decorations, but also see the magic of their making.
City Wedge
The city of Klin, first mentioned in the annals of 1234, was originally a small fortification that was washed from three sides by the Sestra River. Located on a hill, it was a great place to warn of enemies approaching along the river.
This fortified town received the official status of the city only in 1781. Prior to this, it was initially included in the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, and since the 15th century it has been annexed to Muscovy. During the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible, the inhabitants of the city were subjected to mass repressions, but from the end of the 16th century crafts and industry began to develop here, which brought Klin to the 12th place among other industrialized cities of the Russian Empire by the end of the 19th century.
Today Klin is a modern city with established traditions, one of which is the creation of New Year's holidays for children and adults. At any time of the year, you can come to Klinsky Compound, where Santa Claus and Snegurochka constantly live, where they produce colorful and bright Christmas toys and you can learn a lot from the history of making decorations for the New Year tree.
Christmas tree story
Although tree decoration dates back to ancient Egypt and the druidic animate plants, Christmas tree decoration appeared in the 14th century. This ritual was symbolic in nature, since the tree was crowned with a Star of Bethlehem, apples (a reminder of the fall), candles and cookies as daily bread. This type of Christmas tree lasted until the mid-17th century.
In Russia, they began to decorate fir trees by decree of Peter the Great, who was introduced to this tradition by foreign courtiers, and the first Christmas tree decorations appeared in the 16th century due to the oversight of glassblowers from Germany.
Having blown a glass ball, which in size did not fit any product, he painted it with snowflakes and presented it to his daughter for Christmas. The girl hung him on a Christmas tree. And the glassblower liked it so much that he blew out more balls, which he successfully sold.
Only in the 17th century began their mass production, and Christmas toys appeared in the homes of noble people. Klinsky Compound has been producing Christmas decorations for 160 years, and during this time a huge number of toys were made at the factory, some of which became exhibits in the museum. You can see them all year round, but they cause the greatest interest in adults and children on the eve of the New Year.
Museum Halls
The Klinsky Compound Museum of Christmas tree decorations is divided into rooms dedicated to a specific era in the development of this production.
The first room shows guests the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree in the 19th century. Then each item had its own symbolic meaning. For example, candied fruit meant the food that Eve and Adam ate, and nuts wrapped in a golden wrapper represented the wisdom of the world.
Until the mid-19th century, most of the decorations on the tree were food or flowers, angels and snowflakes made by oneself. It was customary to invite children to the Christmas tree and invite them to choose a gift. By the end of the evening, the tree became almost empty, but all the children were happy.
The Klinsky Compound factory (Klin), opened in the 19th century, began to produce Christmas-tree decorations made of glass, which were in great demand. These toys were very carefully treated and were usually inherited.
The tree presented in the 1st hall is decorated with sugar flowers and apples, as was customary in the 19th century.
New Year's toy of the beginning of the 20th century
"Klinsky Compound", reviews of which are the most enthusiastic, both for children and adults is a kind of time machine, with which you can simultaneously visit different periods of economic growth and industrial development of Russia.
So, the second hall takes guests to the 19th century, to the glassblower workshop, where glass beads, Christmas balls, representing apples, bells and angels were made. Here are the tools with which the glassblower created, and toys of that time.
In Hall 3, you can see how industrialization influenced the production of Christmas toys. For a long time, the forbidden tradition of decorating the Christmas tree was revived in 1935. Some of the exhibits presented here are made of cotton and cardboard. In the windows there are glass decorations of those years, and on the stands you can see a dying art form - New Year's cards.
Glassblower workshop
The most interesting magic that Klinsky Compound offers to see is the work of glassblowers, who, in the presence of guests, turn glass into a ball, cone, bell or Santa Claus.
The craftswoman, warming the glass tube over the gas burner, brings it to a soft state, so that immediately through a special hole in the tube to blow out a glass masterpiece. This work requires great skill, which can only be gained through years of practice. Craftswomen retire early, as this work belongs to the category of hard work.
No less interesting is the Christmas tree painting workshop. Klinsky Compound is a unique museum where you can not only look at the exhibits, but also watch their birth. Each craftswoman gives the toys a unique image, which is inherent only in works made by hand.
You can buy unique Christmas-tree decorations in the store at the museum.
Score
The Klinsky Compound Museum invites everyone to purchase the works of factory craftswomen in a store that works seven days a week, from 9.00 to 20.00, without a lunch break.
You can buy Christmas decorations from Klin in different cities, but you cannot find such an assortment and such a low price as in a local store.
The shelves are full of Christmas balls, hand-painted on various topics. Here is the Kremlin, and angels, and Christmas trees in the snow. A good gift will be a ball with a Happy New Year to grandmother, grandfather, parents, friends with their name on the toy.
Balls of different sizes and colors are the main assortment, although there are also many glass toys of other shapes: tops, cones, hearts, houses, trains, icicles and symbols of the New Year.
In addition to toys, you can buy artificial Christmas trees: from small backlit to beautiful life-size beauties.
Other museum halls
Not everyone knows that Pyotr Tchaikovsky lived and worked in Klinsky County. A separate room is dedicated to his fairy tale ballet The Nutcracker. Here is an elegant Christmas tree, next to which are fabulous heroes - The Nutcracker himself and his enemy Mouse King. Guests are introduced to this work to the sound of the music of the great composer.
Interesting exhibits are located in shop windows dedicated to the time from the 40s to the 60s. The content of the motifs of glass balls, as well as the shapes of other Christmas tree decorations, was affected by wartime. Here are toys in the form of airplanes, orders, stars of various sizes.
In the 60s, the theme of Christmas-tree decorations was connected with space flights. On the shelves of the museum are glass rockets, astronauts in spacesuits, planets of the solar system. Toys in the form of geometric figures, stars, assembled from beads and cylinders were very popular.
A separate stand is dedicated to Santa Clauses and Snow Maidens, made in different sizes. For adult visitors, these stands are memories from childhood, and kids will be interested to see what their parents decorated the Christmas trees with.
Excursions for the smallest
Although Klinsky Compound is a toy museum, theatrical performances are held here for the kids, which they will remember for a long time. Mother Zima meets the children near the Christmas tree, gets to know them, makes riddles and sends them, accompanied by Bunnies, on a journey through the museum.
Each hall has its own character representing expositions, but especially children like Christmas trees hanging from the top down from the ceiling. Unusual forest beauties are decorated with balls and tinsel, so one can only wonder why all this does not fall down.
In the last room of the kids, a 10-meter Christmas tree and Santa Claus with the Snow Maiden are waiting. They play round dances, sing songs with children, play and, of course, light a Christmas tree. This performance is for the smallest viewers. Older kids are waiting for other performances.
Programs for students in grades 1-7
According to reviews of children and parents, not only the exhibits of the museum leave a delightful impression of the excursion, but also the opportunity to watch a fairy tale or take a master class on painting Christmas balls. Klinsky Compound (photo shows this) is a wonderful place where children reveal their talents.
Toy painting is an opportunity to show imagination and make a gift for mom and dad with your own hands. Children especially love the workshop, where workshops on painting glass balls are held. Each child is given a toy painted in a bright color, on which you can apply your own drawing with special paints.
For students in grades 1–7, Klinsky Compound prepared a costume performance called “The Adventure of a Bead”, during which participants will tell the children how the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree and the history of the first glass toys were born. They will also learn what glass is made of and how to work with it.
Programs for high school students
It is difficult to surprise modern teenagers with anything, but the Klinsky Compound Museum (Klin) always succeeds. They are waiting for the post office of Santa Claus, located in the Ice Palace. Children will learn the history of the development of Russian post and the coachmen’s compound, on the site of which a factory and a museum were built.
The postman is depicted on the emblem of the city, which is unique in itself, since the riders always depict warriors with weapons in their hands on the symbols of Russian cities. The only peaceful rider is on the coat of arms of the city of Klin.
A meeting with Santa Claus will allow each student to send a letter requesting a gift for the New Year. To do this, you should think over the desire in advance and write it on a piece of paper.
Holidays in the "Klinsky Compound"
The museum hosts not only New Year’s performances, but also Shrovetide, the birthdays of Mother Zima, Brownie and Matryoshka, and in the summer there will be an exciting program for Santa Claus and Summer.
The museum has a holiday all year round, so a trip here at any convenient time will be an unforgettable event.