For several decades, Yekaterinburg has claimed the title of the third cultural capital of Russia, and this is quite justified, since the city has more than two dozen theaters and several concert halls, as well as 60 art galleries and museums, many of which are considered cultural institutions of federal significance. Among the most interesting tourist sites in Yekaterinburg, one of the oldest in the Urals - the Sverdlovsk Museum of Local Lore, which at one time was admired by many famous representatives of the Russian and European intelligentsia, occupies a special place.
Museum of Local Lore (Yekaterinburg): History
At the end of the 60s of the 19th century, the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers (abbreviated WOLE) was organized in Yekaterinburg. From the very first days of the existence of Wole, the question was raised about the need to create a local history museum in Yekaterinburg, and in 1870 a solemn ceremony of its establishment took place. In 1888, the Wole Museum launched a permanent exhibition in one of the administrative buildings of the mining department, which consisted of rather extensive zoological, mineralogical, paleontological and botanical collections. A little later an interesting archaeological department appeared here, and by the beginning of the 20th century, paintings by Ural artists were already exhibited in the museum. In the same period, eminent scientists from different countries of Europe visited the Wole Museum repeatedly, leaving admiring reviews in the visitors book. The next period of intensive development, now already as the Sverdlovsk Museum of Local Lore, this scientific and educational institution survived in the 70s of the last century, when several architectural monuments in Yekaterinburg and in other settlements of the region, in which the museum branches began to operate, were transferred to it.
How to get there
The legal address at which the local history museum is currently located is Yekaterinburg, Malysheva street, building 46. However, the museum exposition itself is located in a building known as the Museum of Ancient History of the Urals, whose contact information is 69 Sverdlovsk Museum of Local Lore, Yekaterinburg, Lenina, 69 tel. +7 (343) 3589527. To get there residents and guests of Yekaterinburg can be on trams running on routes with numbers 2, 3, 14, 20, 8, 21, 25, 22, 27, 26, 32, and minibuses N 018 and 021 to the stop “Iset Hotel”. By the way, the main museum building in itself is already considered a unique architectural monument of the 20th century, as it is one of the rarest examples of constructions in the constructivist style built on the territory of the Ural region.
Tourists visiting the Sverdlovsk Museum of Local Lore (Yekaterinburg) can also visit the nearby Museum of Fine Arts. This is a well-known cultural institution located at 5 Voevodina Street, was created in the mid-1930s on the basis of the art collection of the Wole Museum.
Branches
Today, the main city in which the Regional Museum of Local Lore has settled is Yekaterinburg. However, its branches are also located in the village of Arti, in the cities of Asbest, Alapaevsk and in Polevskoy. Special mention deserves the unique Museum of Gold in the city of Berezovsky, dedicated to the discovery of gold deposits in the vicinity of Yekaterinburg in 1745. And, of course, one cannot fail to mention the most interesting Turin Museum of the Decembrists, part of the exposition of which is dedicated to the romantic and tragic love of Camille Le Dantoux and Decembrist Ivashov, exiled after the wedding at the Petrovsky Plant in Turinsk.
Museum of Local Lore (Yekaterinburg): educational programs
Sverdlovsk Museum of Local Lore is also an important educational center of regional significance. In recent years, several interactive educational programs for various age groups have been introduced here. During such classes, their participants can not only listen to an interesting story by museum staff about the history of the Ural region, but also touch some of the ancient man’s labor tools, try to make clay amulets and amulets, study the structure of the traditional dwellings of the Bashkirs, Russians, Mansi people, learn how to charge silicon gun sample of 1812 or winding footcloths.
Memorial Hall of the Romanov Dynasty
The special pride of Yekaterinburg museum workers is the Romanov Dynasty Memorial Hall, located on the fifth floor of the main exhibition building on Lenin Street. The exposition presented there consists of two parts devoted to the history of government, the abdication and death of Nicholas II and the search for the remains of members of the royal family, who were shot in the Ipatiev House. Among the most valuable exhibits are weapons that were used to shoot the last Russian Tsar and his relatives, personal belongings of the Romanovs, as well as many photographs, including those taken during the stay of the family of Nicholas II in Yekaterinburg, after abdication and departure from Moscow.