Merchant Totma: From Salt Works to Sea Discoveries

17 points7 km0 hours

This route introduces you to the unique salt-making trade that made Totma one of the richest towns of the Russian North. This old town of seafarers and explorers also preserves the memory of the Totma merchants who conquered Alaska and California. We'll begin the tour at “Totma Salt,” a cultural and historical landscape complex in the village of Varnitsy, Totma District, Vologda Region. It introduces the ancient salt-making trade, which played an important role in the town's development. Here you'll learn all about salt making and see open-air museum exhibits and the Kokorev Garden. The route was prepared as part of the “Vsyako Doyedem” (“We'll Get There Anyway”) project.

Route author

Yulia Drugashkova

Things to do

История
Парки
Ремесло

Route points (17)

“Na Bolshoy Sadovoy” Museum and Exhibition Center and “AntreSOL” Creative Space in Totma

Point on route “Merchant Totma: From Salt Works to Sea Discoveries”

Point 15

“Na Bolshoy Sadovoy” Museum and Exhibition Center and “AntreSOL” Creative Space

История • Ремесло

History

The “Na Bolshoy Sadovoy” (On Bolshaya Sadovaya) Museum and Exhibition Center is Totma's youngest museum. It opened in May 2014 in the former Church of the Resurrection, which for many years housed the N. M. Rubtsov Totma Central District Library. The small square in front of the building is also linked with the local poet. According to one version, these are the very “church birches” by which the future poet said goodbye to his first love, Tatiana Agafonova, when he left Totma, and which he later celebrated in an autobiographical poem.

A Creative Place

At the center, Totma artists, craftspeople, makers, and people with unusual hobbies can organize their own exhibitions and display their photographs.

What Does This “Pood of Salt” Taste Like?

In 2016 the center created the interactive space “AntreSOL” (a pun on antresol, “mezzanine,” and sol, “salt”). Its main exhibition is devoted to salt. They say every visitor here will eat their own “pood of salt”: the Russian proverb says you must eat a pood (16 kilograms, or 35 pounds) of salt with someone before you truly know them, so here you'll make new friends and realize your creative potential. The atmosphere invites conversation and lingering: air-ionizing lamps, soft beanbags, cozy lamps, and free Wi-Fi.