Cherepovets Museum Association

About museum

Cherepovets Museum Association has a history of more than 100 years. The first records of the existence in Cherepovets of a museum under the city government date back to 1870. The museum was opened at the initiative of the city mayor I.A. Milyutin and the scholar-ethnographer, archaeologist and custodian of manuscripts of the Rumyantsev Library E.V. Barsov, who donated his archaeological collection to the city and drafted the museum's charter. Initially the museum had no building of its own, so the collection of the eminent townsman was kept alternately in the City Duma and in the teachers' seminary. The museum's second birth took place in 1895. At the initiative of the teachers' seminary instructor N.V. Podvysotsky, who later became the museum's first director, the City Duma decided to establish a museum in the city.

On 31 March (old style) 1896 the museum was solemnly opened. The museum's collection at the opening numbered 3,759 items, received from 41 amateur enthusiasts. At present the ChMO collection comprises about 500,000 storage units. In 1898 a stone building was specially erected for the city museum on Aleksandrovsky Prospect (now Lunacharsky Ave., 39). In 1920 a Museum of Local Nature named after A.I. Herzen was opened, and the city museum became known as the Museum of Antiquities. In 1927, on the basis of these two museums, a local history museum was created, with Ya.T. Bogachyov appointed director. The museum held the status of a research institution and carried out commissions for the Academy of Sciences. In 1928 another stone building was erected at Lunacharsky Ave., 41, which currently houses the Historical and Local History Museum. In 1936–37 the museum was transformed first into an experimental exhibition local-history museum of the Leningrad Region, and then into the Vologda Region's Regional Museum. In 1938 an art department was established in the museum, which from 1957 has had its own exhibition space. From 1938 to 1973 the museum's director was K.K. Morozov, an Honorary Citizen of Cherepovets, a recipient of the Order of Lenin and an Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR. Under his leadership the museum gained wide renown, became exemplary in the Vologda Region, and received the title 'Best Museum in the RSFSR'.