Nikolay Bekryashev was born on in the village of Vyropaikha (present-day Dolgopolovskaya) near
Krasnoborsk,
Vologda Governorate of the
Russian Empire to Maria Nikolayevna and Yegor Nikolayevich Bekryashev. He studied in the
Imperial Academy of Arts in
Saint-Petersburg from 1900 to 1910. He specialized in
genre painting. In 1918, the Northern Dvina Culture was open in Veliky Ustyug. The opening event was the exhibition of painting of
Aleksandr Borisov.
Yevlampy Burtsev was appointed the first director of the museum. After the death of Burtsev on 20 November 1924 Bekryashev became the museum director. From 1918, Bekryashev was at the center of the circle of local intellectuals in Veliky Ustyug, whose goal was to preserve the historical heritage of the town. On the opposite side, the authorities wished to close the churches, to confiscate the church property, and eventually to demolish the buildings. Bekryashev and his colleagues found a way to compromise with the authorities, so that the church property was confiscated, but declared to be the historical and cultural heritage, transferred to the museum and preserved there. The museum was initially located on the premises of
Mikhaylo-Arkhangelsky Monastery in the center of the town. In 1921, Bekryashev managed to attract the commission from Moscow, which evaluated the Veliky Ustyg buildings and concluded on which of them represent the cultural heritage. He used the decisions of the committee against the local authorities which had no interest in keeping the buildings of former churches. == References ==