Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local History

About museum

The unique collections include ancient tools made of wood, bone, stone and metal from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age, copper tableware of the early 18th century, Nevyansk Old Believer icon painting, the world-famous Kasli artistic cast-iron work, samples of Ural jasper and prehistoric marine shells.
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\r\nA favorite among visitors is the largest and oldest known surviving wooden sculpture—the Great Shigir Idol—which is a monument of global significance. It was discovered at the end of the 19th century by workers at gold mines on the Shigir peat bog; its age is nine and a half thousand years, making it twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids.
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\r\nOne of the most tragic chapters of our history is revealed by the exhibition dedicated to the stay of the Romanov family in the Urals. On the night of 17 July 1918 in Yekaterinburg the execution of the last Russian emperor Nicholas II, his relatives and close associates took place. Around the same time other members of the imperial family exiled to Perm and Alapaevsk were also killed.
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\r\nThe exhibition consists of two parts. The first is devoted to Nicholas II, his life and reign, marked not only by turbulent social upheavals but also by the growth of Russia's power. The second tells of the investigation into the circumstances of the imperial family's murder and the search for their remains.
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\r\nThe investigation began at the end of July 1918, after Yekaterinburg was taken by the Whites. At that time it could not be completed, but the fact of Nicholas II and his family's murder at the Ipatiev House was confirmed. Searches for the imperial family's remains resumed only in the 1970s and were carried out by enthusiasts. Their work culminated in success in 1979, but its results became public only ten years later. In 1991 an official exhumation was carried out of the discovered burial, which contained the remains of nine people.
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\r\nFor several years forensic and genetic examinations were conducted, with leading specialists from Russia, the USA, the UK and Ukraine involved. In 1997 the personal identities of the remains were established, and a year later the imperial family found their final resting place in the Romanovs' ancestral crypt in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg.
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\r\nThe exhibition is unique in that it presents materials related to the investigation of the murder and the examinations: photographs, documents, physical items found at the sites of the searches for the imperial remains. There are sculptural portraits of those killed, created by Russian forensic specialists using the method of the noted anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov.