Museum of the History of Pensions

The Museum of the History of Pensions is a museum opened in the premises of the branch of the Pension Fund of Russia in the Jewish Autonomous Region . It is located in the city of Birobidzhan at the address: Sholom Aleichem Street, house 45. The museum was created by a group of activists of the Pension Fund as a public and opened in April 2008 . Employees of the museum, which already has more than 250 exhibits , position it as the first not only in Russia but also in the world ^[1] .

The museum is dedicated to the history of the emergence and development of pension business in Russia. The exposition of the Museum of the History of Pensions covers almost a three-hundred-year period of Russian history, starting from the time of Peter the Great , who, having introduced pensions for maritime ranks, actually became the founder of the Russian pension system . According to the Maritime Charter , the state pension was awarded to sailors who received disabilities in the service or in battle, as well as the families of those who died for the Fatherland ^[2] .

The idea of ​​creating a museum arose in preparation for the destruction of expired archives . According to Tatyana Moshkina, the curator of the museum ^[3] :

When I saw one of these cases, my hand did not rise to burn him. The pension book was wrapped in some old-fashioned newspaper, which in itself is already a rarity. And in the photo was a red partisan Grigory Churkin. He was born in 1882, fought for Volochaevka. Now this is our story.

Currently, the collection is replenished with things and documents that visitors to the museum give ^[4] .

The museum has a number of rare archival documents on the accrual and payment of pensions at different times. Among the unique exhibits - the pension book of the hero of the First World War , which has three St. George's crosses ; retirement book of a soldier’s widow of World War II , issued on a simple newspaper ^[5] . Historical documents are presented in the surroundings of objects of the corresponding era - a kerosene lamp , soldier's ammunition , postcards , banknotes , photographs and newspaper clippings. In addition, the museum presents genuine equipment that pensioners worked with — a typewriter , stationery , counts with cherry tree knuckles, an arithmometer , calculators of different generations ^[6] .

Museum exhibits tell, for example, about how soldiers who returned from the Civil War fronts received a pension with flour and potatoes . It is interesting that they had to return to this practice in the early 90s of the XX century, when due to the lack of pension funds they again began to be issued with natural products ^[7] . A separate place is occupied by the part of the exposition dedicated to the modern Pension Fund, here you can see portraits and biographies of department heads, photo reports about important events ^[8] . Museum visitors can learn how the modern work of the Pension Fund is organized using digital technology ^[9] .

The museum organizes a traveling exposition, which museum employees present in schools and enterprises in the region ^[10] .