Kamensk-Uralsky Local History Museum named after I.Ya. Styazhkin

About museum

The local history museum was opened to the public on May 5, 1924, based on the mineralogical collection of the local historian-activist I.Ya. Styazhkin. Until 1931 it operated as a public, people's museum, then obtained state status. In 1955 the museum participated in an archaeological expedition of Ural State University led by V.S. Stokolos: one of the oldest human settlements in the Kamensky district was discovered, named the Luzhki settlement after its location, as well as the Chernoskutovskaya, Maray and Voroninskaya sites. Stone tools and numerous ceramic fragments dated to the 2nd millennium BC were found. These finds formed the basis of the museum's archaeological collection. In 1959 a second museum building was erected, and after the construction of a third building—styled, like the first two, in the classical manner—a museum complex was formed. The pride of the museum is the artillery collection, assembled from samples of products of the Kamensk plant dating from 1733. Particularly notable is the collection of written sources — several thousand handwritten, typewritten and printed documents. The museum has an archive including a fund of copies of documents on the early history of the city (17th–18th centuries). The core of the numismatic collection consists of the Shcherbakovsky, Klevakinsky, Chasovskoy and Barabinsky hoards, as well as a coin collection that belonged to the native of the city A.G. Stenin. The photograph collection includes images by well-known Ural photographers V.L. Metenkov, N.A. Terekhov and the Kamensk plant photographer I.A. Sokolov.