Cultural Heritage of the First Cosmonaut: Human Potential in a Historical Context

On April 25, the first scientific and practical conference of the United Memorial Museum-Reserve of Yuri Gagarin was held in Gagarin, Smolensk region (formerly Gzhatsk). At the plenary part of the conference the head of the Centre for Regional Programs of Social and Cultural Development Pavel Shulgin and the leading expert of the Centre Olga Shtele presented a joint report on the topic "Experience in using cultural heritage in historical rural settlements".

The village of Klushino, located near Gzhatsk, is the birthplace of the first cosmonaut. He spent his school years in Gzhatsk and repeatedly came here to visit his parents after a space flight. The Yuri Gagarin Museum-Reserve is one of the youngest museum-reserves in the country, created at the beginning of 2022, unites all these memorial objects. He sets himself the task of actively using the historical heritage associated with the name of the first cosmonaut, attracting a significant number of visitors, socio-economic development of historical and cultural territories.

In their report, the specialists of the Institute for Social Policy shared their experience in the formation of comprehensive programs for the preservation and use of the heritage of small historical towns and historical rural settlements, as well as the organization of these activities within the framework of museum-reserves.

The paper was prepared in the framework of a research grant funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (grant ID: 075-15-2020-928). Scientific project "Atlas of Cultural Heritage"