Recruitment took an important place not only in the military but also in the state policy of the Russian Empire up to the beginning of the 20th century. Its history has long attracted the attention of researchers. However, despite the significant number of works on various aspects of its history, a comprehensive analysis of conscription in Zaonezhye region in the modern Russian ethnomusicology does not exist yet. Probably, this can be explained by the small volume of musical sources. The aim of this paper is thus to reconstruct in a modern museum the military service ceremonies of the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century in the Russian Transonezh region. Besides, being very actual in the practice of museums of the world and Russia, the questions of the reconstruction of traditional ceremonies in museums are, nevertheless, marginal at present. For this reason, the analysis and reconstruction of the recruit ritual will enable us to formulate the question of ways and methods for constructing ritual reality in the museums of the 21st century. This work is of interest to musicians, ethnographers, folklorists, ethnomusicologists, historians, sociologists and culturologists.