Museum of History and Archaeology of the Urals

About museum

The Museum of History and Archaeology of the Middle Urals presents exhibitions and displays that tell the history of the Urals from the earliest times to the present. The exhibition "Ancient History of the Peoples of the Urals" covers the historical period from the appearance of humans on the eastern slope of the Urals 14,000 years ago to the 15th century. Visitors can enter a cave with Paleolithic paintings, see the hearth of a Neolithic dwelling, learn about burial rites from the Eneolithic period, and at the end of the tour view ancient objects through the eyes of a modern archaeologist. The "Shigir Treasury" exhibition's main attraction is a monument of world significance — the largest and oldest known preserved wooden sculpture — the Great Shigir Idol. It was recovered in the late 19th century during gold mining by workers at the Shigir peat bog (near the town of Kirovgrad). It has been established that the Ural idol is twice as old as the pyramids and pharaohs — its age is 9,500 years. The exhibition "On One Land Under One Sky" presents the museum's ethnographic collections. The exhibitions "On the Roads to Siberia" and "The Mountain World" present the history of the Urals from the 15th to the mid-19th century. They tell of the exploration of the Urals by Russian pioneers and the rise of the Urals as the industrial dominant of Russia's Siberian region. Separate themes are dedicated to the history of Siberian roads, travelers and researchers of Siberia and the Urals, and to individuals who played a key role in the history of the Urals: V.N. Tatishchev, V.I. de Gennin, the Demidovs, the Yakovlevs, the Turchaninovs, the discovery of the first Russian gold in the Urals, Ural Old Believers, and others. The Hall of Remembrance of the Romanovs recounts the years of Nicholas II's reign — a time of great social upheaval — and details the investigation into the circumstances of the deaths of the last Russian emperor and his family, presenting unique materials related to these searches carried out from 1919 to the present day. Key exhibits include genuine items from the house of engineer Ipatiev, in which, on the night of July 16–17, 1918, the imperial family was killed. The exhibition "The Urals to the Front. The Great Patriotic War" displays samples of weaponry and uniforms from the war, a collection of orders and insignia, and award weapons.