The Machine Tool Museum

In the very center of Tula, a part of the legendary Oktava factory territory was idle: modern technological production no longer required such large areas as in the 20th century. This led to the formation of unused space, which negatively affected the development of the city. Rostec State Corporation developed a project that positively influenced the urban environment and attracted private investor Mikhail Shelkov.

At SPIEF 2016, the general director of the state corporation Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, the governor of the Tula region, Alexey Dyumin, and Mikhail Shelkov, signed an agreement on the Oktava Creative Industrial Cluster’s creation, which includes PCI The Machine Tool Museum. Together with the head of the region, Aleksey Dyumin, Rostec director of special assignments Vasily Brovko presented the project to Russian President Vladimir Putin and received his approval.

The project to create a creative industrial cluster is very large-scale and multi-layered. At the very beginning, the Orchestra project bureau team conducted in-depth studies and surveys, studied a huge amount of materials and documents at the regional level, organized meetings with the local community, and all the data collected were carefully analyzed. After identifying key tasks and project characteristics, a creative team was formed. Several areas of work were highlighted, among which was the museum work. Specialized experts were invited for each of the areas. The Machine Tool Museum is a multimedia museum that tells about the development in Russia and in the world through various layers of industrial history and culture.

There are 3 main excursions in the multimedia hall of the museum: the bright “Tula is the Russian Workshop”, the children’s “Little Machine Tool and Spindle”, and the informative “History of Industry”. In addition to the multimedia hall, one can visit a temporary exhibition hall, a media library, a cafe, and a bookstore with a selection of popular science, historical, and educational texts, as well as children’s literature, graphic novels, and unique souvenirs on the museum floor.

The exposition decision of the Machine Tool Museum is based on the principle of complicity and application of modern technologies, which allows the museum visitor to become an active participant in thematic media performances.