The installation consists of a shelf with the first (and only) volume of the Ural Soviet Encyclopedia, which was published in 1933. The Ural Soviet Encyclopedia was a product of the "encyclopedic epidemic," which spread across the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s with the beginning of local history studies.

The history of its publication reveals the complex interactions and confrontations between state ideology and the scientific and research communities.

While publishing encyclopedias, the Soviet state intensified its control over publishing houses, giving the party line priority over the encyclopedic spirit.

By 1937, local history as a scientific discipline was destroyed, most encyclopedias were left unpublished, and many historians were persecuted.