Exhibition of the Museum of Merchant History of Kungur

About exhibition

The Museum of Merchant History opened on August 18, 2007. The museum is located in the building of the Small Gostiny Dvor. This trading complex was built in 1874 by tea merchant M. Gribushin. The exhibition of the Museum of Merchant History is housed in the large hall on the upper floor of the building. It contains a rich collection on the history of Kungur’s commercial and industrial life from the 18th to the early 20th century. Separate sections cover the Siberian Route, the leather and footwear trades, the pottery craft, the grain trade and the tea trade. Until 1918 Kungur was regarded as the tea capital of the Russian Empire. The first tea-selling company was founded here in 1840 by first-guild merchant A. Gubkin. The museum presents information about merchants famous throughout Russia — V. Fominsky, A. Gubkin, A. Kuznetsov, M. Gribushin — and their entrepreneurial and philanthropic activities. Kungur is a merchant city; many have written about this, including V. Nemirovich-Danchenko: “Kungur is predominantly a merchant city. Everyone here lives by what the merchant provides, and the merchant is the foremost person here…”