Penza State Local History Museum

About museum

In 1905 the Penza Society of Natural Science Lovers founded the Penza Local History Museum as a natural-history museum. In 1924 it was renamed and departments of archaeology, ethnography and history were established. The museum also included a botanical garden, a vivarium and an observatory. From 1988 to 2004 it was the head institution of the association of state local history museums of the Penza Region, which included 15 branches. Since 2005 the branches were abolished and transformed into municipal museums and historical-local history departments of municipal libraries. Currently the Penza State Local History Museum comprises: the V. O. Klyuchevsky Museum, the I. N. Ulyanov Museum, the N. N. Burdenko Museum and the Zolotarevskoye Hillfort exhibition hall. It holds more than 140,000 museum items, including paleontological, archaeological and ethnographic collections, as well as a rare books collection.