The Saratov Local History Museum stores invaluable information about the history of the region. His foundation is one of the largest in the country. The history of the first space flights, the memory of the famine of the 30s, exhibits representing rare animals, and much more are kept by the museum of local lore. Saratov (photos of the regional center are located in large numbers in the halls) appears before the visitors at the same time as the birthplace of great scientists and cultural figures, the capital of the Volga region with elegant Art Nouveau buildings, a city in which they devotedly worked during the Great Patriotic War - a place where they were born, rejoiced and sad, people were dying. The unique collection of the museum will be interesting not only to residents of the region, but also to numerous guests.
History
The Saratov Museum of Local Lore is considered one of the oldest in Russia. It was founded in December 1886. The initiator of the museum was the Saratov Scientific Archival Commission, which also appeared this year. Initially, the fund consisted of items brought by the inhabitants of the city.
The Saratov Local History Museum was not immediately placed in the building where it can be found today. The collection was transferred to the former mansion of the merchant Ustinov already in 1930. The building itself is a monument of cultural heritage. This is a wonderful example of architecture in the style of classicism, designed by I.F. Kolodin.
Funds
Today, the Saratov Regional Museum of Local Lore (SOMK) stores about 400 thousand exhibits. Among them are old books and coins, colorful and faded posters, archaeological collections, ritual and religious objects, various materials about the history of the city and the region, their cultural and political life.
SOMK is a large museum association comprising ten branches. It hosts numerous excursions for schoolchildren, students and everyone, as well as lectures and public holidays.
Special pride
Saratov is not the oldest city, but its history is rich in significant events and is inextricably linked with the fate of the whole country. The local history museum contains a lot of evidence of past years, allowing you to create a complete picture of the past.
The permanent exhibition "Our noble compatriots - workers of science and culture" contains photographs, documents and other materials depicting the lives of famous people who were born, lived or worked for a long time in Saratov. The collection contains some personal items, important papers, photographs of the great scientists N. I. Vavilov and N. N. Semenov, aircraft models by designer O. K. Antonov. The exposition is decorated with books and various objects that once belonged to the writer K. A. Fedin, composer A. G. Schnittke, such famous actors as B. A. Babochkin, E. V. Mironov, O. I. Yankovsky and O. P. Tabakov.
From antiquity
There are unique exhibits in the museum’s halls telling about the distant past of the tribes inhabiting this area, and even about times much earlier, when there were no people. The latter include, for example, the skeleton of an ichthyosaurus. Elements of horse harness, utensils, ritual objects dating from the VI-V centuries BC tell about the life and occupations of the distant ancestors of modern Saratovites. To a later era are no less valuable exhibits:
- sabers and knives, donated by the Empress Elizabeth I (XVIII century);
- Ural Cossack wedding attire dating from the end of the 19th century;
- a carved armchair of the finest work, made by the master Shutov V.P. at the end of the century before last;
- a straitjacket at the beginning of the 20th century is a leather product used in prisons and colonies to pacify prisoners.
The list of rarities is far from complete: it is better to see once than read a hundred times.
Art Nouveau Charm
Residents of Saratov know that most of the most elegant and beautiful houses in the city were built around the same period, at the beginning of the last century. These buildings, decorated with curved lines resembling a stream of cigarette smoke, sculptures, bas-reliefs and wrought iron elements, belong to the modern style of the time. The streets of a bygone era have been dedicated by the Saratov Museum of Local History to a separate exhibition, “The City and People.” Visitors are offered photographs of the still under construction indoor market, the first buildings of the university and other houses familiar to today's residents. After visiting the exposition, it’s good to walk around the center of Saratov - all the buildings from the pictures will appear in their modern appearance - a worthy end to the museum trip.
Colonists
The museum constantly runs the exhibition "From the Life of the Volga Germans". Here you can see furniture, clothes, various household supplies used by the colonists who settled on the banks of the Volga. According to photographs and interior elements, the Saratov Local Lore Museum allows you to imagine how the commune lived, which became in 1924 an autonomous republic and existed until August 41st.
Funds are constantly replenished, new exhibitions are regularly held in the museum. Now here you can see the exhibits of the State Darwin Museum of Moscow. The Leafing Bram exhibition is dedicated to the traveler and writer A. Bram and contains unique books, a collection of birds and animals.
The Saratov Local History Museum is open to all who are interested in the history of the city and the region. It works from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Saturday - until 7 p.m., the ticket office closes one hour earlier), Monday is a day off, and the last Tuesday of the month is a sanitary day.