Mugai Museum and Tourist Complex

About museum

The building, erected in 1911, is a monument of history and culture of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. This building housed the Museum of Public Education and Library Affairs, which later became known as the Mugai Museum and Tourist Complex. The history of the museum is closely tied to the history of the school. The first exhibits were taxidermied birds and small animals native to the surrounding forests. Later, collections of locally sourced dye clays and an herbarium of medicinal and dye plants appeared, and soon unique finds followed: the skull of a prehistoric rhinoceros, bones, teeth, jaws and a mammoth tusk. The museum, originally located in a corner of the physics classroom, grew and expanded. Thanks to the first director, Maria Petrovna, the museum was enriched with remarkable living exhibits — representatives of 42 species of houseplants, including a Mexican cactus, Pavlovsk lemons with golden fruits, ficuses, a palm reaching the ceiling, and asparagus plants... The school literally luxuriated in greenery. It was the first school museum in the district, then Makhnevsky, and later in Alapaevsky. Today the museum preserves the history of public education in the rural hinterland — from the parish school to the mid-20th-century school.