Aghdam Bread Museum

About

Aghdam Bread Museum was a designated museum of bread and bakery products, agricultural implements and their history, located in the city of Aghdam. The museum opened and received its first visitors on 25 November 1983. It had about 2800 exhibits and was protected by state as a cultural monument. The "Sunbul" Cafe operated on the adjacent territory of the museum. The initiative to create the Museum of Bread in Aghdam belonged to the first secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR, Sadig Murtuzayev, who in 1982 read an article about the Museum of Bread in the German city of Ulm in the "Izvestiya" newspaper. It was decided to create a Museum in the building of an old mill. The restoration work was carried out by local specialists. The main facade of the building was decorated with stone shebeke and two huge mosaic panels almost two floors high. The idea of the mosaic belonged to Sadig Murtuzayev, and it was made by the Aghdam artist-designer Zakir Rustamov. The panel was assembled using special colored stones. On 25 November 1983, the museum received its first visitors. The museum consisted of three main sections. The area of the first exhibition hall was 80 square meters, the second - 30. The first hall housed a mechanical mill capable of grinding 8-10 tons of grain per day. It also exhibited a used, in the 1930s, Trier machine for separating the grain from impurities. The second exhibition hall was also abounded with interesting exhibits: tools of labor - a plow, a threshing board, a knife, a sickle, a threshing machine - "charchar" books, manuscripts and various materials testifying the development of the agricultural tools for grain growing and farming. On the wooden stairs to the right of the mill it was possible to climb to the second tier. In addition, a jug and kitchen utensils were displayed in the lower hall. The exhibits in the next hall were exclusively related to grain growing and agriculture. Various types of wheat, grains of different varieties, bread cards issued to children during the war, as well as a map of Azerbaijan made from wheat grains were exhibited here too.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.