Irbit Historical and Ethnographic Museum (second building)

About museum

Irbit Historical and Ethnographic Museum is a unique provincial museum, founded in 1883 at the initiative of the Ural Society of Naturalists (UOLE). The newspaper 'Irbit Fair Leaf' wrote in 1893: 'The foundation of the museum was laid by the collections of the former district school...'. In 1911 the museum was housed in the house of Moscow merchant P.V. Mikhailov, donated to the city according to his will. During the Civil War in Irbit there were lootings and fires, and many museum exhibits were plundered or destroyed. In 1921, at the initiative of the Irbit city Department of Education (Politprosvet), it was transformed into a mobile educational-demonstration museum of visual aids of the district department of public education with a collection of 3,675 items. In the early 1930s, thanks to the efforts of M.D. Golubykh, the museum moved to a new building and actively replenished its collections. In 1943 the museum was mothballed and did not operate. It reopened in 1945 in the building at 50 Kirov Street. The two-story building at 74 Kirov Street was opened to visitors in 2009. In the 19th century the building was the home of merchant Shipitsin Fedor Alekseevich. He had previously lived in a small house at 12 Nikolaevskaya Street. He suddenly became wealthy and bought a house on the corner of Yekaterinburgskaya and Malaya Torgovo-Ploshchadnaya streets, then a second one next to it. He connected the houses with an insertion in the same architectural style. On Torgovaya Street he acquired a three-story mansion. In the building he bought on Malaya Torgovo-Ploshchadnaya Street, Shipitsin established the 'Alexandria' hotel. In 1918–1919 the Irbit District Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies was located in this house. Later it housed a preschool pedagogical college, the main supplier of staff for kindergartens in Sverdlovsk Oblast, and a music school. It is an architectural monument. Museum halls: 'The Indigenous People of the Region'; 'From Settlement to Town'; 'Gymnasium Classroom'; 'History of Photography in Irbit'; 'Around the Samovar'; 'Saved Relics'; 'Enchanting East'.