Irina Rashitovna Romanovskaya - on her love for nature and her passion for marine exoticism
Stepping over the threshold of the museum-apartment, you are already full of hope that your childhood dreams will definitely come true today. After all, the loud trumpet sound of the sea shell, reminiscent of Ichthyander calling his faithful dolphin friend Lidding, opens the excursion into an extraordinarily beautiful underwater world.
- Irina Rashitovna, do you greet everyone with this call?
- Yes, I want visitors to feel like they are in the "kingdom of Neptune" from the very first moment. You know, mastering such a "musical instrument" is not easy. I learned with difficulty; it’s like blowing a horn. This shell, with the unusual name "Toad," has a slightly cut edge, and the sound that comes from it is very loud. Previously, shells were used as signal pipes, usually known as the "Horn of Triton." The signal was needed so that ships would not collide during fog at sea. On the battlefield, warriors used shells to announce their presence and greet each other. In the movie "Amphibian Man," the main character was indeed blowing into such a type of shell.
By the way, the mollusk living in the "Horn of Triton" shell plays an ecological role. In Australia, there is the Great Barrier Reef. There, the sea star "Crown of Thorns" crawls over the corals and acts like a vacuum cleaner, sucking out all the living coral polyps that live in small holes. As a result, the corals are under threat of destruction. And the mollusk, by feeding on sea stars, thus protects the coral reefs.
UNUSUAL EXHIBITS
- Which find is especially dear to you?
- Probably the shell I found in Cuba while visiting an uninhabited island. You know, where the hotels are located, you can only find fragments and shards of marine creatures on the beaches. So, when I was offered a tour on a Soviet helicopter to the Caribbean Sea, I immediately agreed! Upon arriving on the island, many people hid under palm trees from the scorching sun, while I walked along the shore until I found something that looked nothing like a shell. This something was lying among thorns, and a swarm of flies was circling above it - I realized that there might be some organic matter here. Carefully turning over the find, I saw a bunch of worms wriggling inside. It was a "Elephant Ear" shell that needed to be cleaned of "filth," washed, and put in order. Now it proudly occupies a place of honor in my museum. There were also a huge number of sea sponges found there. The most interesting one is a sponge that looks like a stone, found in the white coral sand of the Caribbean Sea. When schoolchildren come to me, I throw it at them to make them laugh and shake them up a bit. In reality, it is very light. If you wet the sea sponge, it becomes very soft, you can lather it and even wash with it.
On that same island, I was lucky to find the most beautiful "Fan" coral. I searched for a long time, even despaired, thinking I would take at least a small fragment, and suddenly, pulling on a small edge, I pulled out an amazing wonder from the sand that looked like wood. I was so happy! The question arose: how to bring the find home intact? I had to place it between magazines.
Once in China, a Chinese woman was trying to sell me an unfamiliar item, and I couldn't bring myself to buy it, not understanding what it was, and the price confused me. The woman gestured so animatedly in front of my face that it seemed that one more move and I would be killed if I didn't buy this "souvenir." Now I am grateful to her because I learned from the Internet that this is also a sea sponge, but from a completely different group, which cannot be lathered or even squeezed by hand. It belongs to the fragile glass sponges. When collectors like me appeared in Europe several centuries ago, it was the ultimate dream, and this beauty is called the "Venus's Basket." It’s hard to believe that this is a creation of nature! It creates the impression that it is woven by human hands, and from the thinnest white threads. It used to emit a smell of iodine, but now it is practically gone.
Since we are talking about various attributes of the goddess of Love, I cannot help but show the "Venus's Comb" - a mollusk shell. This snail has an amazing shell that protects it from predators, and believe me, not one of them would want to feast on it, as it resembles a fish skeleton, meaning it has sharp long spikes.
- What is the most unusual exhibit in your collection?
- It is a whale baleen. I found it on the deck of a ship in Chukotka. Its length was two and a half meters. I couldn't send such a long item by mail, so I had to shorten it a bit. The sailors also offered me a whale vertebra, which was about the size of a stool. But the post office was not ready to send such a bulky item, and I had to part with the vertebra. Among the unusual exhibits, there is also a shark jaw that recently took an honorable place in the exhibition.
FROM FOOTHILLS TO GLACIERS
- Irina Rashitovna, what prompted you to create an extraordinary museum at home?
- Most likely, it was my parents. They were geographers and travelers, and I traveled a lot with them and saw many beautiful places. They brought back a large number of exotic souvenirs from distant countries; they visited the island of Cuba, and some shells, sea sponges, and corals were found by them. These exhibits laid the foundation for my collection. My father, Rashit Jamalievich Zabirov, was the director of the Tian Shan High Mountain Station of the Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz SSR. During the war, as a young topographer, he participated in P.N. Rapasov's expedition to clarify the peaks. He is credited with the discovery of the highest peak of the Tian Shan. He determined that Victory Peak is higher than Khan Tengri Peak. Before that, it was believed that the latter was the highest. My mother worked at the university; she was a biogeographer and soil scientist. She took her students into the mountains, from the foothills to the glaciers. My sister and I, still very young girls, also participated in these hikes. That’s how my love for nature and all its wonders was formed. Later, I began to collect sea shells, corals, and other unique gifts of the World Ocean.
- Does your passion help you in your work?
- I work as a geography teacher at Gymnasium No. 6. I try to learn as much as possible about the nature of our planet and pass this knowledge on to my students.
By nature, I am a collector. As long as I can remember, I have always been passionate about something. In childhood, I collected stamps; I still have a shirt that is completely covered in badges. Now I am passionate about photographing birds. I have already managed to capture 164 species of birds in Kyrgyzstan. But marine creatures fascinate me the most. I have had the opportunity to travel to various exotic countries and bring back unique exhibits from there. Thus, my "Museum of Ocean Exoticism" is regularly enriched.
- How do your relatives feel about your passion?
- When I became interested in collecting marine wonders, my friends and relatives, and there are quite a few of them, somehow began to find unusual shells for me, some brought them from other countries. Once, I managed to go to China. In the store, I was trembling with excitement as I sifted through and examined what I had once dreamed of and could now purchase. My happiness knew no bounds! Later, I began to visit the countries I was interested in annually, and the shelves of my museum were adorned with exhibits from Tunisia, Thailand, Cuba, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. When you find sea shells yourself, and then wash them, clean them, and process them, they certainly have much greater value than those bought in a store. This year, I went to the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. I saw tundra and polar beluga dolphins. Now white seaweed adorns my museum.
DANGEROUS ENCOUNTER
- Were you scared when you traveled to distant countries?
- Usually, I travel alone; I am used to it and am not afraid of anything. But there was one case that made me very anxious. It was in Sri Lanka, where I was enthusiastically photographing white herons and their chicks in nests. My memory card filled up, so I needed to find a place to hide from the sun to free up space for more shots. I decided to walk along a narrow path to the lake, where Sri Lankans had boats moored that you could get into. I made my way there, climbed into a boat, prepared my camera for work, and started to head back. And… oh, horror! I saw a huge three-meter monitor lizard 15 meters away from me - it was the size of a crocodile! I froze in fear. All the terrible stories about encounters between humans and reptiles flashed through my mind. While the animal was stunned by surprise, I cowardly stepped forward, and as soon as I started to move, the lizard crossed to the other side of the path and slowly headed towards the lake. Such things don’t happen often…
We live in the center of the largest continent. Thousands of kilometers separate us from the waters of the World Ocean, so in my opinion, the exhibits of the "Museum of Ocean Exoticism" are very interesting to every visitor.
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