Velsk Local History Museum named after V.F. Kulakov

About museum

Velsk Local History Museum — one of the oldest museums in the Arkhangelsk Region — was established in May 1919 on the basis of the unique collection of antiquities of the local peasant Vasily Feoktistovich Kulakov (1867–1945), which is rightfully considered the "golden fund" of the museum. The museum is located in the center of the town of Velsk, in five buildings constructed in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. One of them houses the only Museum of House Paintings of Povazhye in the Arkhangelsk Region, representing the unique heritage of the Vazh painters, the Petrovskys.
The museum's collections include more than 30,000 storage units — from the Mesolithic era to the present day. The most valuable among them are the ethnographic collections (carved distaffs, sewing implements, gingerbread boards, clothing items, tableware), collections of icons, rare books, lubok prints, numismatics, painted items, paintings by local naive artists, and Somov ceramics.
The main museum building houses three permanent exhibitions:
- "History of Povazhye from ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century",
- "Velsk uyezd/district in 1917–1964: history and destinies" (interactive),
"Nature and Natural Resources of the Velsk District" (interactive).
The museum administers the I.A. Brodsky House-Museum (Norinskaya village, Konoshsky District, Arkhangelsk Region).
The museum has two exhibition halls where traveling exhibitions from the collections of Russian museums and private collections are organized.