Economy as an Object of Museumification: From the Experience of Studying Industry and Corporate Museums of Small Towns in Russia

The article discusses various approaches to the museumification of economic objects -a factory-museum, a museum complex, a museum-reserve, a technology park, an industrial museum.A special place in this series is occupied by corporate museums created within the structure of enterprises and organizations.In addition to commemorative ones, they perform other functions, combining the tasks of preserving the history of the enterprise and presenting the products it produces.The importance of such a museum increases sharply in a small town, emphasizing the role of the city-forming enterprise in the cultural and social life of the locality.The article uses materials obtained during field research conducted in 2021-2023 in several small towns in Russia as part of the project "Museum of a Small Town: Multiple Cultures of Memory (Historical and Sociological Analysis)", supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation.In addition to municipal, school, and folk museums, the research program included the study of enterprise museums.The most complete and interesting material on corporate museums was obtained in the cities of Kachkanar (Sverdlovsk region), Vytegra (Vologda region), Mednogorsk (Orenburg region), Trubchevsk (Bryansk region), Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky (Transbaikal region).It allows us to characterize the main trends in the development and problems of the functioning of enterprise museums, as well as their role in the formation of the urban memorial landscape and the historical and cultural potential of the city.