Altai State Museum of Local Lore

Among the museums in Siberia, it is considered one of the oldest. By the age of mining in the Altai (it was in 1823) in Barnaul, the department "Mountain Museum" was founded. It really deserves respect is the Altai State Museum.

The initiators of the creation of the museum were engineer, inventor and chief of the district Kolyvan-Resurrection factories Pyotr Kozmich Frolov (years of life from 1775 to 1839) and Doctor of Medical Sciences, naturalist, researcher of Altai August von Gebler (years of life from 1782 to 1850). They also laid the foundation for the formation of the historical, technical and natural collections of the Museum of Science.

Strong> "... this Museum is intended mainly for use at the miner's school, as well as for the lovers of science ... and contains especially the works of Siberia ..."
F. Gebler wrote about the museum about the Altai State Museum of Local Lore , 1829.

By the beginning of the museum was formed several collections in it were exhibits: mineralogical, zoological, numismatic collections. There were also collections of ethnographic and archaeological rarities: "The certificate of mastery of the Siberian peoples" formed ethnographic collection, although it was started long before the creation of the museum and was assembled by one of the creators - Kozmich Frolov, he was a passionate collector of antiquities.

By the beginning of 1926 the first exhibition of the museum was held, models of mining machines, archaeological, ethnographic, zoological collections, mineralogical researches were presented on it. C. Ledebour, who was a professor at the University of Dorpat, after visiting Barnaul in 1826, described the exposition of the museum, noting such exhibits as: "various objects of Siberian peoples, such as weapons, utensils, clothing and equipment of shamans."
Also confirmed by this fact are numerous museum catalogs. In the catalog of the section "Ethnographic part of the Barnaul Cabinet", compiled as early as 1836, there are about one hundred objects of everyday life, as well as culture items from the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia, China, and North America.

In 1907, archaeological, ethnographic, and most of the collection models were transferred to the Imperial Tomsk University and the Tomsk Technological Institute.

Since 1915 the museum was located in the building of the former chapters. Chem. Laboratory of the Altai region. And in 1920 the museum once again opened its doors for a public visit.

The modern collection of the museum's collection, numbering more than 150 thousand units of storage, reflects the history of the region and its natural resources from ancient times to today. In the collection of the museum are the history of mining from the XVIII to the XIX century including rarities at the all-Russian level: models of the atmospheric steam engine - engineer I. I. Polzunov, as well as the model of the Zmeinogorsk mine - "Snake Mountain" model of the Suzun Mint machine , this The set was made for the museum by PK Frolov's prose as early as 1825-27.

Collections on the history of the Kolyvan granite plant them. I.I. Polzunova, this is one of the centers of Russian stone carving in the XIX century in the Altai. In the collection there is a bowl for posing grass from gray porphyry (1815), a bowl of dark purple porphyry made for the plant's 90th anniversary (1952). Archaeological collections present monuments of ancient history from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages of Altai. A vivid image of the multinational Altai creates an ethnographic collection that includes the traditional material culture of Altai, Mordovia, Russian, Ukrainian, German and other peoples of the region. More than 20 thousand units. The annual historical and ethnographic expeditions of household help to replenish the collection fund.

The Altai State Museum of Local Lore is open for visits today.