Exhibition 'Firefighting'

About exhibition

The pride of Tomsk is its old carved wooden terems. Currently the city has about 2,000 wooden buildings, of which roughly 200 are architectural monuments. The large number of wooden houses is due to the fact that building with wood was faster and cheaper. The buildings were densely packed, which made fires a common occurrence. Fire spread quickly from house to house, consuming entire streets and districts. Not only firefighters but also the townspeople themselves helped to preserve the wooden houses. And on the highest point — Voskresenskaya Hill — above the police headquarters building a fire watchtower was erected in the mid-19th century, where a watchman was always on duty. The exhibition displays copies and original exhibits from the 19th–20th centuries that tell about the work of the Tomsk Volunteer Fire Society, the signaling system for alerting districts to fires, and the daily life of firefighters. After visiting the exhibition, visitors can climb to the observation deck and look out over the city. Entrance to the exhibition is free for participants of the SVO and their family members.