Khabarovsk Museum of Archaeology

About museum

The Museum of Archaeology is located in the former residence of 2nd-guild merchant Bernard Petrovich Lubben.

Of all the buildings that belonged to Lubben, this house is of the greatest interest. A compact rectangular volume in plan with a gable roof, it faces Turgenev Street with its elongated facade. On the facades the main compositional device is the combination of the red color of the brick masonry with the gray color of the plastered rustication of the piers between the windows. The modeling of the decor, concentrated in the area under the cornice and in the window surrounds, is characteristic of the eclectic period in architecture. However, the unknown builder was also well acquainted with the stylistic subtleties of Art Nouveau. On the central part of the facade a letter “L” is laid out in brick — the initial of the surname of the former owner of this house, merchant Lubben, according to Khabarovsk local historian A.M. Zhukov. If this assumption is correct, then this detail was added later, since the building originally did not belong to Lubben.

In the first year of the new government the “Revolutionary-Democratic Court” was housed here; later the two-story building on Turgenev Street was transferred to the road and transport department of the OGPU. In 1925–1926 the two-story house accommodated the offices of the Dalzoloto trust and a number of other organizations. In 1939 the trust opened here a school for mining-industry apprentices to train specialists in gold mining. Subsequently, at different times the house housed the city military enlistment office, the city council of Osoaviakhim, the executive committee of the central district, the Museum of Russian Toys, and since 1980 — the Museum of Komsomol Glory.

In 1997 the building was handed over to the local history museum, where in 1998 the Museum of Archaeology opened and remains to this day. In 2013–2014 the building's facade was repaired, during which the iron staircase from the time of the building's construction was removed. Part of that staircase and its fittings are kept in the Museum of Archaeology as a memento of the building's more-than-century-long history. At the same time, an extension was added to the museum on the side of the brewery building, housing the Museum of Archaeology's research laboratory, and a unique interactive exhibition “Labyrinths of the Underworld” took up residence in the building's garage. Today the building at 86 Turgenev Street is valued as an interesting example of an urban manor house and is an architectural monument of federal (all-Russian) significance.