Balashikha Historical and Art Museum. Department: Historical and Local Lore Museum

About museum

The Historical and Local Lore Museum of Balashikha was opened in 1968 at the initiative of a local circle of local historians. The first premises where the young museum was able to start its work was the tollhouse for collecting highway fees on the Vladimirsky Trakt (now Gorky Highway).
Museum staff, local historians, as well as teachers and students from all city schools; city institutions, enterprises and private individuals took part in collecting exhibits.
The museum operated until 1979, when it was closed for repairs to the premises.
The museum was reopened only in the early 1990s in the basement of a multi-storey residential building at 53 Lenin Avenue, where it is still located today. In those years the museum collections continued to actively form, a local history club operated, scientific conferences were held, and meetings with interesting people were organized.
Since then the collections have been supplemented by a large collection of household items, interesting collections of historical documents related to the life and work of the famous sculptor G. D. Alekseev; the Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, director of the S. Obraztsov Puppet Theatre — Vladimir Kusov; a collection of old deeds; a collection of photographs and documents of Soviet war correspondent V. A. Tyomin; a collection of wartime photographs by N. S. Khrushchev's personal photographer V. Dmitrievsky, and many other exhibits.
The museum exhibition displays objects, photographs, documents, and old urban estates (Gorenki, Pekhra-Yakovlevskoye, etc.) located on the territory of the Urban District as well as those of major local enterprises.
Since mid-2023 the Historical and Local Lore Museum joined the Balashikha Art Gallery and became one organization — the Balashikha Historical and Art Museum (MBUK "BIHM") with two departments: the Historical and Local Lore Museum and the Art Gallery.
The museum's collections now include more than 18,000 items in storage.
The museum houses two exhibition halls and three rooms with permanent exhibitions.
The tours and public programs department conducts tours not only of the museum's exhibitions but also of exhibitions held at the museum every one-and-a-half to two months; thematic evenings and meetings with interesting people; scientific and educational conferences and quizzes; and workshops.