There are only a few topics, which are historians of Eastern countries attracted, especially the history and deployment of tractors in agricultural practice. The electrification of the country and the industrialization of agriculture were tangible (and perhaps the only successful) projects of the monstrous socio-economic engineering of Soviet tsarism.
Not surprisingly, in many post-Soviet museums, you can find a truly placed tractor or something remotely reminiscent of a tractor. It is no different in the Osh Museum, where the first tractor brought to Kyrgyzstan in the 1920s throne on a pedestal. It is a beautiful and sturdy piece of iron that I must admit attracted me more than all archaeological collections – well, see for yourself in the gallery.

The grandfather’s tractor exhibition is complemented by other agricultural history artifacts that deserved my attention, notably two massive pieces of stone used (hooked behind a tractor) as cultivation rollers (smashing lumps of clay). A closer look will leave no doubt that these are architectural elements (medieval and modern times), specifically decorative pillars made of quality stone.
These stones thus fulfill three museum functions: they complement the department of tractors; department of historical architecture and demonstrate an original approach to the issue of so-called artefactual reuse …. 🙂