V.I. Chapaev House-Museum, Balakovo

About museum

In 1948, at the initiative of fellow countrymen and comrades-in-arms of Chapaev, a museum was established as a branch of the Pugachev Memorial House-Museum of V.I. Chapaev. In 1986 it became a branch of the Saratov Regional Museum of Local Lore. It is located in a wooden house in the former Sirotskaya settlement — Bodrovka, where loaders, horse-drawn cab drivers and the poor of Balakovo lived. This was also the place where V.I. Chapaev’s parents lived from 1900 to 1922. The museum features a memorial exhibition that clearly illustrates the life and activities of Vasily Ivanovich. Here you can see a sideboard and a box with carpentry tools, as well as view personal belongings and photographs of members of the Chapaev family. The museum’s collections comprise more than 6,000 items, including photographs, documents and objects. You can also see ethnographic and numismatic collections and applied art items. The museum plays an important role in the patriotic education of Balakovo’s younger generation.