Nizhny Novgorod Exotarium

About museum

The exhibition of exotic animals 'Nizhny Novgorod Exotarium' opened in Nizhny Novgorod on May 19, 1996. At that time terrarium keeping was not yet well developed: equipment had to be made by hand, information about rare species was practically nonexistent, there was no feed base, and the animals themselves were hard to obtain — they were bought from zoos, private collections and abroad.
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\r\nOver 23 years of operation, the exhibition's collection has come to include more than 80 species of animals, among them birds, amphibians, mammals, invertebrates and other unique representatives of the fauna. Reptiles are the most widely represented: snakes, turtles, lizards and caimans.
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\r\n'Nizhny Novgorod Exotarium' ranks among the five best exotic animal exhibitions in Russia. It is also the largest in the Volga region. Each year the exhibition is visited by more than 15,000 residents of Nizhny Novgorod and guests of the city.
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\r\nThe Exotarium is located in the very center of the city at 18 Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, in the Sverdlov Palace of Culture. The building was constructed in the 19th century and is a monument of late Classicism architecture. Before the Revolution it was the building of the former Nobility Assembly, and later the house belonged to the trade union and became a center of the city's cultural life.