The collection of the Belgorod State Historical and Local History Museum, in the section devoted to the architectural appearance of Belgorod in the late 19th — early 20th century, features an item connected with Alexander Alexandrovich Novikov. At the beginning of the 20th century, he was the head of the construction department of Belgorod in the city administration, and later became the head of the city water supply.
Novikov was a versatile man. He was not only an architect and builder, but also a talented artist, traveler, avid lover of theatrical performances, and a collector.
Of particular interest are the memorial items of Alexander Alexandrovich, transferred to the museum’s collections in the 1950s. Among them is a wooden box for storing personal belongings. The box is made of wood, lined inside with light-blue satin, and locked with a key. It has a laconic shape with a decoration in the form of appliqué geometric patterns on the lid and on the body of the box. The lid of the box is locked with a mortise lock.
Inside the box, there are personal belongings of Alexander Novikov: a folding ruler, a mouthpiece, pince-nez, and tuning forks.
Pince-nez are glasses without temple arms, held by means of a spring clip on the bridge of the nose. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pince-nez were optical accessories, equally popular among men and women, and were a symbol of the intelligence of their wearers. In the 1910s, rimless pince-nez models became fashionable.
The mouthpiece protects the smoker’s fingers from absorbing tobacco resins, which give them a specific color and odor, and also serves an aesthetic function.
A tuning fork is a tool for fixing and reproducing a standard pitch, used when tuning any musical instruments and choirs. The simplest and most common tuning fork is an idiophonic (self-sounding) vibrator in the form of a U-shaped metal rod with a foot. This type of tuning fork is characterized by a stable oscillation frequency.
In Belgorod, buildings constructed under the
leadership of Alexander Alexandrovich Novikov have survived to this day.
