Uglich Cheese-Dairy Plant (USMZ) has begun developing the concept and design of the Museum of Cheese Making. The B&K design bureau, which has extensive experience in working with museum expositions, has begun work. The Museum will welcome the first tourists in 2023.
On the territory of the Uglich Cheese-Dairy Plant, work is starting on the creation of the Museum of Cheese-Making< /p>
The Uglich Cheese-Dairy Plant (USMZ), one of the leaders in the Russian cheese-making market, is part of the AgriVolga agricultural holding. (famous for its organic cheese brand "Ugleche Pole"). Today USMZ – a unique enterprise that combines long-term traditions of cheese making, scientific developments of VNIIMS (All-Russian Research Institute of Butter and Cheese Making) and modern production technologies. USMZ produces such famous cheeses as “Uglichsky”, “Russian”, “Poshekhonsky”, “Dutch”, as well as dairy products “From Uglich”. and “Yaroslav”. Paying tribute to the traditions that were born on the Yaroslavl land back in pre-revolutionary times in the artels of Nikolai Vereshchagin, the father of Russian cheesemaking, USMZ decided to create a Cheesemaking Museum here. This will become a new point of attraction for the guests of Uglich, will expand the possibilities of tourism in the Yaroslavl region, including gastronomic and educational tourism – these directions are trending right now.
"Plans to create a Museum of Cheesemaking originated with us in the process of modernizing the plant. During the modernization of the plant, we created a panoramic glass wall through which tourists can observe the production process. And now, when the modernization is completed and modern equipment has been supplied to the plant, it is time to start creating the Museum. The exclusive items of old equipment that we have preserved will become its exhibits. Together with our partners, experienced specialists Design Bureau «B&K» we started to develop the concept and design of the Museum”, – says Andrey Molev, General Director of USMZ.
The design and concept of the museum will be handled by Design Bureau «B & K» (named after its founder Eric Belousov and co-founder Maria Kornilova), which develops modern museum expositions at the intersection of interesting architectural and design solutions. This creative team worked with the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum, the Shchusev Museum of Architecture, the Moscow Film Festival, and also developed concepts for corporate museums and exhibitions, including for Rosatom and Sberbank. Therefore, the museum of cheese making within the walls of a large industrial enterprise in the Yaroslavl region, which is USMZ, appeared for the Design Bureau “B & K» interesting challenge.
“We all love cheese. And when we saw the powerful modern production at USMZ, we were impressed and even more inspired, – says Eric Belousov, founder and art director of the Design Bureau “B & K". – Of course, such a big topic as cheese making can be revealed from different angles. This is both a historical context and the context of modern production, this is work with archives. And of course, such a museum will be rich in information from a cognitive point of view.
“We try to combine various interactive solutions, multimedia, design approaches, which allows visitors to immerse themselves in different layers of content and at the same time get a completely different experience of interacting with the exhibits and information that is presented in the museum,” notes Maria Kornilova, co-founder and creative director of Design -Bureau «B&K». – Of course, each exhibition project requires its own approach, our task is to find a basis that will suit a particular exhibition space, this applies to both the visual and the content range».
According to the designers who are now developing the concept of the museum together with USMP, this will be a space rich in information, because Russian cheesemaking has a rich history.
In the plans of the authors of the museum concept – tell about the history of cheese and cheese making from the very beginning, touching upon the first attempts at cheese making in the era of Peter the Great, focusing on what happened in Uglich in terms of the development of cheese making. Much attention will be paid to the personality of Nikolai Vereshchagin, the founder of cheese making in Russia, as well as his followers, who will talk about the famous “Vereshchagin Triangle” – places of development of cheese-making. The exposition of the museum will definitely tell about the history and development of the plant (USMZ), as well as about modern cheese production and the unique cheeses that are produced here: the museum will demonstrate the continuity in cheesemaking.
And of course, the museum will have its own chips, unique features – but the designers promise to tell about this later. The most important – that this object will definitely become one of the highlights of Uglich, expanding the tourist and excursion opportunities of this ancient Russian city. “We are also facing an important task from the point of view of developing tourism in Russia,” notes Maria Kornilova. – We hope that our work will contribute to the fact that people will come to Uglich with even greater interest to visit our museum.
It is planned to complete work on the concept and design of the museum by the end of April 2023.