The State Museum of the State Cultural Center is currently running an exhibition to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory.On display are unique photographs, posters, archival documents, military items and personal possessions of soldiers, ethnographic objects, artworks, arts and crafts.
One of the impressive exhibits that sets the spirit-stirring tone to the commemorative exhibition is a large-scale color photograph depicting highlights of the Victory Day military parade celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory: Turkmen honor guard soldiers march in Red Square in Moscow, led by the head of the Galkynysh National Equestrian Group Pygy Bayramdurdyev astride a white Akhalteke horse named Gyrat...
Visitors can soak up the atmosphere of the wartime drama and heroic feats, when the battlefront and home front were a unified whole.Turkmen women donated tons of silver jewelry used to finance military equipment, knitted jorabs (woolen socks) for front-line soldiers.
One of the photographs on view features female collective-farm worker Niyazova, who donated her personal savings of 60,000 rubles what was then a huge sum of money.
On view is also a photograph of the tank, which was built and sent to the front with the use of the money donated by Lallyk Khanova.The exhibition also shows a wartime poster that says “Bread to Homeland and to the Front!
Do Your Duty to Your Homeland!” A man depicted on it calls on female collective-farm workers to grow and collect a bumper wheat crop.The burden of the work landed on women’s delicate shoulders during the war.
One of the centerpieces is a Maxim machine gun with a twisted ammunition belt.This section of the exhibition is the biggest draw for visitors, who have a keen interest in seeing the wartime objects exhibited next to the machine gun: hand and antitank grenades, field telephone sets, radio transmitters, a canteen for drinking water or spirits, and a mess-tin.
Most of the objects look familiar thanks to war movies.Once ordinary, practically useful, but not valuable things, they are now museum rarities providing great insights into the history.
Every single exhibit here is truly unique, for instance, a photograph taken in a front-line trench that captures our fellow-countryman playing the dutar.It is even hard to imagine the Red Army soldier from Turkmenistan, playing melodies dear to his heart hundreds of kilometers away from his home in the short intervals between battles.
Another photograph shows a performance by Turkmen singer M.Farajeva with a band of musicians. …On display is a book of poems by Magtymguly with a bullet hole in it.
Writer Seyitniyaz Ataev, the recipient of the four Orders, carried it in a breast pocket of his Soviet Army-styled shirt.It had saved officer Ataev’s life during the enemy’s attack.
Also impressive are long-awaited triangle-shaped letters sent by soldiers that were the slender thread and ray of hope between the front and rear.Written with a chemical pencil, these purple lines made those who received them extremely happy, and were full of high hopes that the enemy would be totally defeated soon.
A poster depicting a smiling Red Army soldier reads “It was not in vain we went all over the native land - we defended its honor!” also deserves a mention.
Among the victorious soldiers was Ivan Vasilievich Shkurin, who had fought for the liberation of the city of Budapest.Our press photographer Yuri Ivanovich Shkurin has found the name of his father listed in the Book of Glory of Ashgabat and Akhal velayat… Dressed in smart uniforms Military Institute cadets stood out among other visitors with their precise and confident bearing.
They viewed the wartime rarities with deep admiration and were proud of their grandfathers’ and their great-grandfathers’ feats of arm.Honorable elders, representatives of the generation of war children, who had experienced the wartime hardships and seen the feats of home-front workers at first hand, attended the exhibition’s opening ceremony as guests of honor.
Played by the brass band of Danatar Ovezov State Special Music School of the Turkmen National Conservatory, heart-touching war-related tunes united everyone in the spirit of patriotism.