The Museum of Local Lore in Miass, founded in 1920, is one of the oldest cultural institutions in the Chelyabinsk region. E.I. Mali, an artist and teacher, the initiator of the creation and the first director of the museum, left a bright trace in the history of the city and a good memory in the hearts of culture lovers.
The museum’s collection, which initially totaled 1,195 exhibits, has now grown to the 51st. They reflect all aspects of life, development, activity of Miass, a city with a long history.
Miass and city-forming industries
The city of Miass grew out of the working village at the smelter, which was founded in 1773 by I. I. Luginin. The location was chosen for commercial reasons: not far from stocks of raw materials. The city received an impetus for economic growth with the development of gold mining in these parts. At the beginning of the 19th century, large-scale work in gold mines began in the valley of the Miass River.
This period of the city’s life is closely connected with the name of Yegor Mitrofanovich Simonov, who from a simple prospector grew up to the richest gold producer, philanthropist who made a great contribution to the development of the city.
The contemporary Museum of Local Lore Miass, whose address is: ul. Pushkin, house 8, is located in his mansion. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the revolution, large nationalized enterprises fell apart, and the scale of gold mining in the region fell sharply.
At the end of the 19th century, the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway line connecting Miass and Vladivostok began, which also strengthened the position of the city. A saw-tooth factory evacuated from Riga during the First World War, gave a new development to the industrial sector of Miass. It still works, today it is an instrumental production.
The factories evacuated to the Urals in the 1940s from various cities of the country served as the basis for the creation in Miass of the machine and automotive industry. Today, these industries are city-forming.
All these events and many others from the city’s life served as a theme for expanding the museum’s funds, which reflects the historical path of Miass in its expositions.
Museum funds
The collection of archaeological finds, replenished during local history and scientific expeditions, totals more than 20 thousand items.
Mineralogical meeting is not inferior to the previous one in value and diversity. Here are samples of deposits and wealth of the Ilmensky mountains: rocks of ore-bearing layers, ornamental and precious stones.
Kusinsky and Kaslinsky foundry and machine-building factories, who worked on samples of products by famous artists P.K. Klodt, E.A. Lansere, V.F. Torokina, presented a collection of art casting to the Miass Museum of Local Lore.
Documents valuable in terms of history reflect the entire path of the city from the creation of the village at the Miass Copper Plant to the present.
For many years, the rare book section has collected rarities of secular and spiritual content. There are the first acquisitions of the museum - publications of the Ural Society of Lovers of Natural History (WOLES), there are publications of private printing houses of the Miass Factory, there are two Gospels published in the 18th century.
The collection of the ethnographic department was replenished, thanks to the inhabitants of the surrounding villages and villages. It included household items, clothes, tools of different layers of the population.
Specialists build permanent exhibits of the Miass Museum of Local Lore and temporary exhibitions from the collected collections, introducing the history of the region to visitors of the city and local residents.
Exposition: “Founding of a smelter and the history of gold mining”
The atmosphere of the 18th-19th centuries was created in the halls, reflecting the activities and life of workers, the production process and the result of hard work.
Two dioramas - a copper smelter and a gold mine - clearly show the working conditions, tools and appliances used at that time, clothes and life outside the work of ordinary people. It also provides documented information that 52 nuggets were found in the Tsarevo-Aleksandrovsky mine, the largest - 36.6 kilograms. It was called the Big Triangle.
The mannequins participating in the dioramas are made in the height of a person, dressed in accordance with historical data and are very realistic.
Exposition: “Mining Engineer's Office”
The factories operating in Miass, like any production, required qualified specialists and wise managers. There are many such people, even dynasties, whose names are carefully preserved by the Miass Museum of Local Lore. The Redikortsevs, Romanovskys and other specialists with Ural roots have done a lot for city-forming production.
The room in the house of goldmaker E. M. Simonov, which previously served as his office, has now been turned into a mining engineer’s office by museum workers. Modest, ascetic, nothing more. A cabinet with technical books, a simple table with a set for writing, a bookcase (art casting). The furniture is still a Viennese couch for relaxation and comfortable chairs.
Museum Activities
In total, the museum has created six permanent exhibits that tourists are curiously examining, and history lessons are regularly held for schoolchildren. The reviews of the Miass Museum of Local Lore are warm and thankful to everyone. Many wishes for success in creative work.
In addition to excursion work, thematic meetings and exhibitions, theater performances, festivals are held here, leisure activities for young people and the elderly are organized.