Belevsky District Art and Local History Museum

About museum

On September 1, 1910, a Museum of Educational Visual Aids was opened in Belev; in mid-1911 it was renamed the Belev Zemstvo Scientific-Educational and Art Museum. Its main exhibits were acquired by the Belev Zemstvo Duma at an agricultural exhibition and an exhibition of educational visual aids. Pavel Vasilievich Zhukovsky, son of the poet V. A. Zhukovsky, donated a series of portraits of Russian princes and emperors to the museum (33 items in total) and became its first trustee. By early 1912 the museum had 5,656 exhibits. After the Great October Revolution it received the status of a local history museum and was recognized as one of the best district museums. In 1941 the museum building burned down, and in 1960 it was decided to restore it. In the year of reopening it was visited by 575 people, and in 1965 — 9,600. A significant contribution to the collection was made by Nadezhda Petrovna Khodasevich (Leje). Today the museum is located in a mansion in the center of the town of Belev and welcomes a large number of visitors.