Source: People's Daily - People's Daily
The picture shows the Zarantun City History Museum. Han Cold Photo
Core reading
With a population of about 400,000 and an urban area of just over 10 square kilometers, Zalantun City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is a small city with 12 museums. Revitalizing historical buildings and excavating characteristic national cultural resources, the museum has become a new business card of Zarantun, telling the story of a small town with a unique flavor.
During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Ye Mei, a non-hereditary inheritor who lives in Woniuhe Town, Zalantun City, Hulunbuir City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is a little busy. The local Middle East Railway Museum invited her to the exhibition hall to show visitors the art of paper-cutting and celebrate the Spring Festival. Seeing cultural relics, listening to history, appreciating intangible cultural heritage, and learning folk customs have become local New Year customs, which are not only lively, but also more cultural. A tourist said: "The first time I spent the Spring Festival in the museum, I didn't expect the museum in this small city to be so interesting." ”
With a population of about 400,000 and an urban area of just over 10 square kilometers, Zarantun is a small city without compromise. But in this small city, there are 12 museums, and a variety of cultural services tell the story of the small town with unique flavors.
Activation and utilization
The architectural ruins come to life
"Yellow House" is a unique scenery of Zalantun City. These Yellow-walled European-style buildings belong to the Middle East Railway complex, including the Middle East Railway Club, the Forest Police Quarters, the Six Nations Hotel and other former sites. Today, most of these historic buildings are museums that document the history of Zarantun.
From 1897 onwards, with the construction of the Middle East Railway, Zarantun was developed as an important station. Since the 1990s, the momentum of urban construction has been very strong. Feng Jingyu, then deputy director of the Zalantun Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports, said that the people of Zalantun realized that the protection of cultural heritage should be placed in the same important position as economic and social development, pay attention to the use of sites, give connotations to the era of history and culture, and highlight its new value. Subsequently, this relatively advanced concept was written into the work report by the local government. In the following years, the "yellow house" that was once unpopular ushered in a new vitality.
In 2006, the Zarantun City History Museum was built on the basis of the former Middle East Railway Club. Since then, 21 Middle Eastern railway architectural sites have been repaired on a large scale, and 5 museums have been built using old buildings, and the historical buildings have been professionally protected in the revitalization and utilization. "This is a nail, this is a fork in the road..." At the Middle East Railway Museum, Uncle Liu, who worked at the Railway Bureau, is explaining the exhibits. The docent said that these old railway workers sometimes knew more about the exhibits than they did, "these were the years they experienced firsthand." ”
Yu Ping, director of the Publicity Department of the Zarantun Municipal Party Committee, is one of the witnesses to the protection of the Railway Complex in the Middle East. She said that for more than 20 years, cultural security work has always been a key task in the local area. During the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, Zalantun invested more than 15 million yuan for cultural relics infrastructure. In 2013, the Middle East Railway Site Group was announced by the State Council as the seventh batch of national cultural relics protection units. In 2015, Zarantun invested another 100 million yuan for the protection and repair of the architectural site complex...
In addition to the museum built on the Middle East Railway Complex, the local government has also actively excavated national cultural resources, and built national cultural museums such as the Daur Folk Customs Museum and the Orunchun Folk Customs Museum, which are small in scale but have their own characteristics. Today, Zalantun City has 162 key cultural relics protection units at all levels, 12 museums, and a collection of more than 5,000 cultural relics. These museums have become the new business card of Zarantun.
Effort
The cultural protection team has grown and developed
Speaking of the construction process of these museums, Cui Dongbo, director of the Cultural and Expo Management Center of the Zalantun Cultural and Tourism Bureau, still remembers it vividly. Once, Cui Dongbo heard that in the town of Boktu, more than 100 kilometers away from Zalantun, there was a private collector who focused on cultural relics related to the Middle East railway, and was preparing to sell a batch of cultural relics such as kerosene lamps and railway workers' work permits in the Xing'anling Tunnel of the Middle East Railway at that time. In addition to his joy, Cui Dongbo learned that many private collectors were also "staring" at this batch of cultural relics.
"If others take the lead, not only will the price rise, but the integrity of the cultural relics will also be affected." Cui Dongbo and his colleagues rushed to the town of Boktu, and after their patient communication, the collector finally agreed to sell the artifacts to them.
In the Middle East Railway Museum, there is also a collection of "borrowed" collections from the local folk collector Yan Chuntian. Yan Chuntian was a highway system worker before his retirement, and in recent years, he has invested more than 400,000 yuan to collect cultural relics including road nails and well heads used by railway workers in the past. Yan Chuntian once wanted to open a museum of his own to show these cultural relics to everyone, and after many consultations with the cultural security staff, the old man finally readily agreed to lend part of his collection to the museum for exhibition.
The construction of the museum has also led to the development of the cultural relics protection team in Zalantun and achieved a breakthrough in cultural relics protection volunteers and docents from scratch.
Zhang Qi is a docent at the Middle East Railway Museum, who has been working here since 2011 and was one of the first docents in the area. There are currently 14 docents at the Middle East Railway Museum, all of whom are young local people. Preparation of explanatory words, design of exhibition boards, setting up exhibitions... The docents have provided many good ideas for the construction of the museum, and the local docents have been regularly trained and actively carried out foreign exchange activities. "I think this work is particularly meaningful, as we, as the younger generation, have the obligation to preserve, tell and pass on the history of Zarantun well." Zhang Qi said.
Cultural and tourism integration
The imprint of history comes to life
"The poetry is not exhausted in Suzhou and Hangzhou, and the side of ZalanTian is hidden." Mr. Lao She once praised Zarantun in this way. Here, there is the Brahma River that runs through the city, the vast area of native forest, the scenery is picturesque, and the side is unique.
The unique historical buildings make Zarantun's tourism resources more abundant. The staff of the cultural and tourism department said that some tourists would have come to the natural scenery and would have stayed for a long time when they saw so many historical buildings and museums. In 2019, the local received 3.41 million tourists, an increase of 5% year-on-year, and revenue of 3.29 billion yuan, an increase of 6% year-on-year.
At the Middle East Railway Museum, there is a special exhibition hall of local folk artists, paper-cutting, pen painting, feather painting, calligraphy works are dazzling, showing the local historical and cultural imprints. Retired worker Uncle Sun lives near the Middle East Railway Museum, and after the museum is completed, he often comes to visit, "It turns out that there are so many capable people in Zarantun." "Nowadays, when you come to the museum, you can not only visit and study, but also buy cultural and creative products and order works here, which has led to the rise of a number of folk culture and art industries."
In order to let young people better understand the history and culture, Zarantun will carry out the "Museum into School" activity every year. The staff of the museum will bring the exhibition boards and exhibits permitted by conditions to the campus, so as to realize the "exhibition to the classroom and the museum into the campus". At the same time, they will also invite local primary and secondary schools to enter the museum to carry out cultural development activities to achieve "museum-school interaction, cultural and educational progress".
Zhang Qi participates in the "Museum into Campus" activity every year, and every time they come to the campus, the children are very excited and will keep asking questions during the process of listening to the explanations. Every summer, the museum also selects "little docents" from the school to let the children experience the work of the museum. "By getting up close and personal with the exhibits, the children became more interested in the history of the city." Zhang Qi said.
Today, the Middle East Railway Style Historical and Cultural Street is under construction. According to the staff of the local cultural and tourism department, the investment promotion work is steadily being carried out, and cultural industries, characteristic homestays and ethnic cuisines will be gathered here. When it comes to opening to the public, tourists can look up to see the blue sky and green mountains, look down to taste the food and beauty, hear the roar of the train, and walk in the century-old style.
(Han Leng participated in the writing)
People's Daily ( 2021-03-16 13th edition)