Museum of «KARPATNAFTOCHIM» is one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the town

Museum of «KARPATNAFTOCHIM» is one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the town

In Precarpathian, namely in Kalush, Dolyna and Novytsia is planned to create locations of a new tourist route – «Boykyvska Salt». Specialists of three territorial communities are currently working on the grant application. It’s also known that the route will be started in Kalush, from review of exhibits of Folk History and Labor Glory Museum «KARPATNAFTOCHIM» Ltd. that has been operating for long time in the building of Palace of Culture «Mineral».

– The desire of working team of the enterprise  to honour the work of their predecessors, to transfer the knowledge about the past and particularly about the emergence of industrial production in Kalush, was the incentive to create this museum, – tells its director Jury Bezugly. – Availability of historical documents, books, photos about the past and origin of saline in Kalush, as well as the great wish of enthusiasts to save all this for successors gave the opportunity to open such museum in March, 1976. In the year 1978 it received the status as folk museum, and in 2013 this status was confirmed again.

The exhibits of the museum are located in four halls and they are devoted to the history of development of mining, chemical and petrochemical industry in Kalush, to the activity of the main and a very important enterprise for the town, as well as to the development of social infrastructure near it. There is much information here about the best workers of the enterprise and its managers.

The most valuable from historical point of view, according to Jury Bezugly words, are books and publications from the past century with information, who and when visited extracting mines of the town, with photos from that time as well as photographs and even models of original equipment, used at that time.

For many years museum also fulfils important cultural and social functions, as far as it is the centre of activity of Veterans’ Council:

– There is the chance to meet here and to communicate for people, who used to work at the enterprise. We celebrate together such significant dates, as the Day of Withdrawal of Troops from Afghanistan, honouring in such a way warriors-internationalists, the Protection of the Mother of God, when we honour the people that fought and are fighting for independence of our Motherland. We also organise various exhibitions in our museum of exhibits, made by employees of our enterprise, as well as we make presentation of books whose authors are the employees of our enterprise and residents of the town. Unfortunately within the previous year 2020, we could not hold such events due to quarantine restrictions, but we hope that the situation will someday change for a better one, – says Jury Bezugly.

It should be noted that workers of museum, and together with Jury Pavlovych, one more veteran of «Kalush Chemistry» Volodymyr Gudzovatyi, are constantly busy with renovation of museum’s exhibits.

– As soon as we receive something new and interesting, we straight away prepare these exhibits for exposure to the general public. It’s well-known that currently new Units are being put in operation at «KARPATNAFTOCHIM» Ltd., and we are deliberating where it would be appropriate to place the materials about them. It will be necessary to transpose something in one of the halls. We also plan to add the additional information about the history of salt making, in order it to be fitted in the conception of the route «Boykyvska Salt». We will need to work with historic documents, – shares his plans for future the director of Folk History and Labor Glory Museum.

Frequent visitors of this museum are pupils of schools, students of polytechnic college, workers of the enterprise, inhabitants of Kalush and the guests of the town. Its inclusion to the interesting tourist route could give a positive effect on the museum’s development and to attract more attention of citizens.

Recorded by Iryna SAVKA.