Brief history

The concept for the creation of a ‘Permanent Exhibition on the History of Children’s Toys and Books’ in Myrina, Lemnos was formed when Christos Boulotis first began his activities as a collector in 1978. It was triggered by his visit to the Toy Museum (Spielzeugmuseum) in Nuremberg that year, where he was enchanted by a magical, fairytale, dream-like world.

Being by his very nature incurably nostalgic for his childhood and everything representing at the actual and symbolic level, he could not resist spending his remaining money at an antique shop in Nuremberg on a interbellum steam engine of a train – he has always been sweetly ‘haunted’ by trains, as he often remarks.

The collector seed had already been planted in fertile soil – along with Boulotis’ burning desire to see a similar but equivalent museum being established in his hometown of Myrina one day, housing not only old toys, but also rare books of children’s literature and mementos of the world of ‘fresh’ school years. Since then, his activity grew rapidly, if not exponentially, with no regard for the time or money invested.

Some friends believed in his vision and generously donated their old toys for the purpose of the Permanent Collection – he considers them ‘soul donors’, as he characteristically refers to them.
With the prospect of establishing the Permanent Exhibition in Myrina, Boulotis had initially created an ‘imaginary Museum’ (Musée imaginaire) in his mind, in the sense that he thematically grouped the exhibits, placed them in imaginary display cases as set-pieces, combining them in order to highlight the social, symbolic and pedagogical parameters of each toy and book, keeping notes on the identity of the exhibits as a type of archive. With his methodological tools well-prepared through his archaeological experience, he was well aware that in order to be effective and play a visual role, collecting must be combined with systematic classification. Apart from old toys and rare children’s books, he kept enriching his library with special publications on the history of toys and children’s literature over time and wrote a number of related articles in the daily and periodical Press, as well as monographs.

As his collection grew from the hundreds to the many thousands of items, his home on Lemnos and his apartment in Exarchia, Athens had become literally inaccessible warehouses of toys, full of draems, toys, emotions.

A landmark in the history of the creation of the Permanent Exhibition was the presentation of part of the Collection in the summer of 1992 in Myrina, which was met with enthusiastic applause by visitors of all ages, giving Boulotis’ vision impetus and new life. However, after many obstacles, the Collection, which had been donated to the Municipality of Lemnos, was incorporated in its programmes (under the NSRF) in just 2011, under the mayoralty of Antonis Hadjidiamantis.

In order to house the collection, two buildings were ceded by the Municipailty at the picturesque Nea Madytos Beach, in the coastal area of the bay and with a view of the Venetian Castle dominating the skyline of Myrina. Both buildings feature courtyards that are suitable for all types of activities, while one, which houses the main corpus of old toys, is a traditional building of high aesthetics, built in 1906, i.e. the final Ottoman era of Lemnos, when it first operated as a school.

This building has been used for various purposes, most recently as a kindergarten. Thus, the children’s voices first heard within in 1906 and the recent voices of the kindergarten children met with the present-day voices of the young visitors to the Exhibition and the nostalgia of the adults becoming reacquainted with parts of their childhood.