Military-Historical Museum 'Young Defenders of the Motherland'

About museum

Military-Historical Museum 'Young Defenders of the Motherland' was established by the decision of the director of the Kursk Tractor Spare Parts Plant named for the 50th Anniversary of the USSR at the KZTZ Palace of Culture. The founder of the museum is Klara Alexandrovna Ryabova. In 1978 the museum was awarded the title 'People's', and in 1991 it was incorporated into the Kursk Regional Local History Museum. The museum's exhibition presents the history of the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) through the personal fates of children and adolescents who took part in the fighting. More than 300,000 youths from combat units and formations—couriers and reconnaissance, underground fighters and partisans, and young sailors of all fleets and flotillas—fought on all fronts. Sixty thousand teenage warriors died, of whom 4,500 were young residents of Kursk. The museum's collections comprise more than 27,000 items. The exhibition includes war relics, weapons, items of front-line life, awards, photographs, and personal belongings of participants in the Great Patriotic War. The name A. P. Gaidar is associated with the Kursk land; he was the son of the regiment I. N. Surzhikov, a young hero of the Civil War.