On 14 July 2022, a staff member of the department “Museum Street” of Bolgar Museum-Reserve Sagirova L. Sh. held for tourists from Kursk a museum lesson on “Fun and entertainment in Volga Bulgaria”.
Entertainment, fun and games as part of the process of socialization are inherent to human society since ancient times. Modern games are in large part an echo of ancient magic cults and rituals that existed almost among all peoples of the world. The roots of such games go back to ancient times, as evidenced by archaeological materials. But after a few centuries, a large part of games and attributes disappeared in the 2nd half of the 20th century, and many games were completely forgotten.
Games can be divided into 2 groups: for adults and for children. In the first case, these are gambling-driven activities (“zern”, “headstock”) and mind games (chess or draughts). Children’s games are developing and educating. Toys are divided into sound (bells, whistles) and figurative toys (clay animal figurines). There were motor games and appropriate toys: knucklebones and clay balls.
The earliest finds of dice of the Bolgar period belong to the IX-X centuries in the graves of the Tankeyevsky burial ground. More diverse gaming items belong to XI-XIV centuries of the classical Volga Bulgaria.
Children’s games with toys among Turkic peoples were built on the realities of life completely reproduced by kids. Such games were a kind of school of the national language, folklore, dance and singing. Role distributions of children in games reproduced family relations, production and economic activities.
The visitors learned about entertainment of people of Volga Bulgaria, knew the history of emergence of fun and entertainment and learned how games reflected economic culture of people.

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