Historical-revolutionary and memorial museums of political figures began to be created already in the first decade of the formation of Soviet power. Museums helped the new government in solving its primary task - legitimation, which is closely related to the recoding of space at all levels, including cultural memory. At Tomsk State University, the Museum of V. V. Kuibyshev was opened on January 24, 1953. The acquisition of the museum's collection began thanks to significant research and organizational work done by the first head of the museum, V.S. Sinyaev. He identified and collected documents about the life and work of V.V. Kuibyshev from central museums and archives; gift materials were received from relatives of V.V. Kuibyshev. The museum's fund consisted of 675 items. The structure of the museum room fund included documents; photographs reflecting the life and work of V.V. Kuibyshev; phonodocuments: a record with a voice recording of V.V. Kuibyshev and five gramophone records that personally belonged to him; objects of material culture - awards, notebook, calendar, pencil case, suitcase, books, death mask. The first exhibition of the museum was compiled according to a chronological principle. It is characteristic that to determine the chronological framework, it was not events related to the life of V.V. Kuibyshev, but changes in the socio-political life of the country. Thus, the first section reflected the life of V.V. Kuibyshev from birth to 1905, the next section ended in February 1917, then the exhibition presented the period of preparation and conduct of the October Revolution, then the period of the Civil War, the final part of the exhibition was materials about the activities of V.V. Kuibyshev in the first years of the formation of Soviet power. Museum staff provided consultations for teachers and students on the history of the revolutionary movement in Tomsk and the biography of V. V. Kuibyshev; provided copies of documents for the organization of school museums in Tomsk, Moscow, Leningrad, Belarus. Currently, a significant part of the storage items from the "V.V. Kuibyshev" is part of the fund of the TSU History Museum.
