87. The Vitosha Bear Museum Lives in a Tiny Mountain Hut
Welcome to Museum Archipelago in Your Inbox, which does exactly what it says on the tin. Museum Archipelago, your audio guide to the rocky landscape of museums, is hosted by me, Ian Elsner.
Vitosha Mountain, the southern border of Sofia, Bulgaria, is home to about 15 brown bears and one bear museum. According to Dr. Nikola Doykin, fauna expert at the Vitosha Nature Park Directorate, the bear population is stable—if humans stay away and protect their habitat. To Doykin and his team, teaching children about the bears is the best way forward, and the Vitosha Bear Museum does just that.
Founded in 2002 by repurposing an abandoned mountain shelter for the Vitosha mountain rangers, the Vitosha Bear Museum provides “useful tips on how to meet a bear.” It’s also sparse: the entire gallery is a single room, and the gallery lighting is powered by a car battery.
In this episode recorded at the museum, Doykin describes why the location is so useful for eco education, how groups of schoolchildren react to exhibits, and what the museum plans to do when it installs solar panels.
“The idea is to put the children, the new generation, to put them in real feelings to smell the forest, to feel the wind. The whole idea of the eco education, forestry education is to take out the children from the cities and to show them real nature.” - Dr. Nikola Doykin
Gallery Continues ⏭️
The Vitosha Bear Museum doesn’t even have electricity: the gallery is illuminated by LED lights powered by a car battery. But Doykin and his team aren’t opposed to some computer interactives in the gallery. They could turn to another museum in Sofia to get inspiration: Muzeiko.
Muzeiko, the first children’s museum in the Balkans is full of computer interactives entered around the concept of playful learning, which was not encouraged—to say the least—when Bulgaria was a Communist country. On episode 46 of this show, we featured an interview with Programs and Exhibits Director Vessela Gercheva on how those interactives have been received by the Bulgarian public.
Archipelago at the Movies🍿Lisa the Skeptic (1997)
On this episode of Archipelago at the Movies🍿, Lisa Simpson is sure there's a rational scientific explication to the skeleton that resembles an angel she found in the construction site of Springfield's new Mega Mall. The people of Springfield have little patience for her refusal to believe in angels and go on a rampage to destroy the Springfield Museum of Natural History and other scientific institutions.
Rebecca Reibstein returns once again me to dissect 1997’s Lisa the Skeptic. We reveal some embarrassing moments in our childhoods, and we talk about the episode for twice as long as the episode itself.