Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve makes first mobile museum application in Vologda region

Every visitor of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve will get a personal guide this year.

It has become possible thanks to the victory of the employees of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve in the Seventh Grant Contest held by PAO Severstal within the framework of the charity program “Museums of the Russian North”.

A Wi-Fi access point will be located at the entrance to the museum. Entering it, visitors will be able to download a free mobile application “Mobile Guide of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve”. Pressing the button of the audio tour, they will begin their journey of the grounds of the largest fortress monasteries in the world. This tour was prepared by the best experts of the museum-reserve. Your route will be marked on the plan thanks to which you will be able to learn where you are at the moment and to get information about the neighbouring places and even to look inside some of them virtually.

“The mobile application will contain not only the unique content. We have written a small, but concise audio tour and prepared brief description of the monuments. Now we are taking pictures and are preparing panorama shooting. Besides, 3D models of the reconstruction of the original appearance of the most interesting monuments in the monastery are being elaborated for the project. The mobile application will certainly have traditional sections – announcements of the events, information about permanent and temporary exhibitions, presentation of the most interesting exhibits from the museum collections”, said

Alexey Smirnov, head of the Department of Information Technologies in the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve, author of the project.

The application itself is being elaborated by the Multimedia Solutions Laboratory (Perm) – the company that is famous for its close tie with the museum community. Vladimir Zyryanov, expert of the Design Department, shared his impressions of the project, “The space of mobile technologies now is the hottest new trend among the youth and active users of modern gadgets. This is the reason why the museums think about building of their own mobile applications more and more often to introduce the historical heritage in the new space. Opportunities of mobile applications are almost unlimited at present. They can become a personal guide, a navigator of the museum, a show case, an electronic shop for visitors. We analyzed the current market of mobile applications, spotted the main trends and determined the optimal functional for a specific product together with the museum employees”.

Implementation of the project will give a chance for the museum-reserve to expand a circle of visitors, to attract people to exhibitions and to inspire them to make a real visit to the monuments after the virtual one.

Here you can see how some sections of the mobile application “Mobile Guide of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve” will look on your smart phones.