MUSEUM OF MINIATURE BOOKS
The Miniature Book Museum opened on April 2, 2002. The museum was created by Zarifa Salakhova on the basis of a unique collection collected over 20 years.
The exposition of the museum is located in 35 showcases. The exhibition features 4,300 miniature books published in more than 60 countries around the world. The book fund of the museum has more than 6,000 miniatures. The founder of the museum, Zarifa Salakhova, collected them for over twenty years.
Sections of the exposition, such as "Miniature Books Published in Azerbaijan", "Rare Miniature Books", "Religious Literature in Miniature Books", "Pushkiniana", including the poem "Eugene Onegin", published in St. Petersburg in 1837 at life. A.S. Pushkin, are of great interest. Among them is the book “G.Aliyev. Contract of the Century ”, published in Baku in 1998, as well as“ History of England ”, published in London in 1815, and other rare copies. Museum visitors can get acquainted with miniature books published in Azerbaijan, Russia, USA, Japan, England, France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Cuba, Switzerland, and the former USSR. Published in 62 countries of the world, Very colorful books are presented to the attention of the audience. Most of the books are published in English. Their size ranges from 2 millimeters to 10 millimeters. The smallest book in the collection — 3 micro books published in Japan. The books are called "Birthstone", "Signs of the Zodiac and Their Symbols", "Language of Flowers". These books were published in 1979. Their skin is made of sheepskin and measures 2×2 millimeters. Each book consists of 16 pages, which, in turn, contain 50-100 characters. They also have their own reading magnifier. Examples of exhibited books are 4 booklets 3.5 × 3.5 mm, published in Munich (Germany) in 1964, 19 booklets "Pushkiniana" published in the USSR, as well as a collection of proverbs and parables. In 1985, the Moscow publishing house "Kniga" published a five-volume book "The Miracle of Miracles", consisting of 6x9 mm portraits and sayings of A.S. Pushkin and A.M. Gorky. This book has 24 pages of 9 lines on each page. At that time, only 200 copies of this book were published.
Rare religious books can also be found in the museum. These include seventeenth-century editions of the Qur'an, a four-volume Bible (1906), a Catholic prayer book, Torah, Buddhist stories, and more.
The total circulation of rare books is small. Sometimes the circulation of such books does not reach 100. Most of the books here are over 100 years old. The oldest book in the museum is the Koran, published in 1672 in Saudi Arabia. Also in the museum, there is a mini-book with the words of the songs of the famous group "The Beatles" in only 5 copies.
On October 1, 2014, the museum was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest collection of miniature books.
The museum funds are constantly replenished with new publications, as well as donated editions.