Orenburg Governor's Museum of Local Lore

Orenburg Gubernatorial Museum of Local Lore is one of the oldest museums in Russia. The museum has a long and difficult history. The first museum of the region, the "museumthe" was founded on November 24, 1830 by decree of the Orenburg military governor, Count P.P. Sukhtelen. The first building where the museum was located was the Neplyuyevsky Military School.

The new Orenburg governor, V.A. Perovsky, transferred the museum to the ownership of the region, and part of its collections were transferred to the building of the Orenburg Noble Assembly. In April 1839, a museum was opened here, which became known as the "Main Museum of Local Nature Works." The museum was organized by V.I. Dahl (1801-1872), a writer, linguist, doctor, and author of the famous "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language." In 1833-1841, he served in Orenburg as an official of special assignments in the office of the military governor V.A. Perovsky.

After the abolition of the general government, the museum's collections were distributed to various educational institutions in the city of Orenburg. Since 1887, the Orenburg Scientific Archival Commission has been engaged in the restoration of the museum. The search for pre-existing collections and the collection of new ones began. On May 10, 1897, the museum opened as a historical and archaeological museum and occupied a small building belonging to the UAC on the shore of the Urals.

During the Civil War, during the evacuation of the Whites, some of the collections were taken to Krasnoyarsk, but later returned. On September 13, 1919, the Orenburg Museum was opened in the premises of the former officers' assembly. In 1920, Orenburg was declared the capital of the newly created autonomous Kyrgyz (Kazakh) SSR. The museum became known as the regional Museum of Kazakhstan.

In 1925, Kyzyl-Orda became the capital of Kazakhstan, and the republican institutions left Orenburg. The question also arose about museum collections. According to the decree of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of July 13, 1925, the museum was retained by the Kazakh Central Executive Committee with the proviso that the latter was obliged to "allocate exhibits characterizing the Orenburg province to the Orenburg Provincial Executive Committee." A commission was established to divide the property and exhibits of the regional museum. The issue of dividing the exhibits was considered by the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR. Nine-tenths of the former museum's staff, along with the library, were transferred to Kyzyl-Orda.

Since 1934, the museum became known as the Orenburg Regional Museum of Local Lore. In the second half of the 1930s and during the Great Patriotic War, the museum was closed, and the collections were mothballed. In 1946, the museum reopened to the public and contained three departments: historical, socialist construction and nature.

From 1988 to 1994, the museum was used for restoration and re-exhibition works by artists from the St. Petersburg KZHOI and the Moscow Institute "Specialproektrestavratsiya". On September 16, 1994, the museum opened to the public.

In the halls of the museum there are expositions telling about the formation of the city of Orenburg and the province, about the development of the economy and trade in the region of the XVIII–XX centuries, about the military history of Orenburg region, about the development of education and science, about the culture of the region. In the basement there is a nature department, where the flora and fauna and minerals of the Orenburg region are represented. On the third floor there are halls for lectures, meetings, presentations. The four exhibition halls host exhibitions from the museum's collections and exchange exhibitions with the country's leading museums.

Today, the museum is located in the mansion of the merchant A.I. Yenikutsev, an architectural monument of the 19th century of federal significance.