20 May NOVAT will join the all-Russian festival “Museum Night”, giving the nightlong excursion through the building of the unique historic and architectural value and presenting the display of the theatre museum, reopened after 30 years of inactivity. The audience was particularly impressed by the theatre cloakroom, where they still have the gumshoe locker – a box designed to keep the overshoes.
“We must remember, at the time when the theatre was opening, the Novosibirsk town was not yet all covered with pavement – tells Tatiana Sibirtseva, the senior museum funds expert of NOVAT – so the special shelves were made, to keep the outer shoes – nowadays they are completely out of use.”
The rubber overshoes were quite popular in different countries of the world for more than a hundred years since the middle XIX century. They were used to protect the actual shoes and boots from mud and to spare from using the second pair of shoes. Also, it took much less time to take off the overshoes.
Some decades ago, the access in the theatre was limited without the second pair of shoes. In particular, the admittance to the floor of the house was forbidden for the people wearing felt boots, which were very popular during the cold seasons of that time.
“Some secrets of that period might not be comprehensible for the young – noted Tatiana Sibirtseva – till the middle of the previous century the visitors in felt boots were prohibited to enter the house.”