Besides the USSR artifacts, there is also a huge collection of world ethnic music available. It contains thousands of rare and little known audio/video recordings of ethnic music and dance around the world, of all kinds of genres and styles, with a very significant number of recordings being from Russia. Many of these recordings have never been released on CDs. It would be wonderful to share this collection by using the museum space also as an international culture exchange salon.
Having this kind of salon inside the walls of the USSR museum shouldn't be surprising. In the USSR, in order to rally such a huge multinational country and to preserve peace, international friendship and culture exchange were officially promoted and encouraged in every way by the state. Many schools, organizations and factories had their own amateur ensembles. Ethnic music of different republics was often heard on radio and TV, numerous concerts and amateur performance competitions were held. Representatives of different nationalities were invited from all parts of the country and even from abroad to introduce others to their culture. It would be nice to continue this good tradition in the new international salon.
