Museum of Orenburg History

The main building of the Museum of Orenburg History is situated in the Belovka historical district, on the elevated bank of the Ural River. Constructed in the mid-19th century, it is now a monument of federal significance for urban planning and architecture. In 1853, while serving his second term as Governor-General of the Orenburg Governorate, Vasily Perovsky requested the Ministry of Internal Affairs to construct a new storehouse for the Orenburg Treasury. A stone storeroom with a non-commissioned officer's guardroom was constructed using funds collected from the townspeople through a special levy for the construction of offices and prisons. The construction contract was fulfilled by Ivan Petrovich Skalochkin, a self-taught serf architect from the village of Vakhrushovo in Yaroslavsky Uyezd of the Yaroslavl Governorate, the estate of Counts Kutaisov. The Treasury Storehouse was completed in 1856, three years after construction began. It was built in the original pseudo-Gothic (neo-Gothic) style and resembles a small medieval fortress. The building's main entrance is situated on the western façade and features a large trihedral avant-corps with dentils above a white stone cornice. The entrance and its adjacent windows are designed with pointed arches, typical of the Gothic style, and are bordered with relief white accents. The brick above the entrance is coloured and bears the date '1856'. The first floor has double window openings with white stone partitions, under white stone horizontal lintels with 'lugs', decorated with projecting pylons. The second storey of the northern facade also has Gothic lancet windows with lintels and weights. The northern facade is decorated with corner turrets, and the central risalite has dentils. During the 1970s, a front garden was added, featuring retaining walls made of coquina slabs and an improvised fence in the form of metal balls with chains, in front of the main entrance to the building. In 1977, sculptor V. Stepanyan installed a monument to Alexander Pushkin in the front garden. The guardhouse building served its intended purpose during the Russian Empire and in the USSR until the end of the 1970s. == Museum history ==

Negotiations for the transfer of the guardhouse's premises to the Orenburg Governor's Local Lore and History Museum have been ongoing since 1970. In 1978, the building was handed over to the city by the Volga Military District thanks to the efforts of Yuri Garankin, the chairman of the Orenburg City Executive Committee, and restoration work began. The Orenburg Governor's Local Lore and History Museum initially housed the department dedicated to the pre-Soviet period of Russian history. In the early 1980s, Yuri Garankin initiated the creation of new pendulum clocks with bell chimes for the museum tower. The design, by Orenburg clockmaker N. S. Kuznetsov, included chiselled bronze and cast iron parts from hardware and machine-building plants, as well as 7 bells cast in the Orenburg Diesel Locomotive Repair Plant. The mechanism was assembled by employees of Metalist plant. The chimes indicate the time, while the melody 'The Orenburg Steppes Have Blossomed' by Soviet composer Grigory Ponomarenko is played. The museum initially housed six halls of exhibitions with various themes: • ancient history of the Orenburg Region; • the history of the city's foundation; • the Peasant War led by Yemelyan Pugachev; • Alexander Pushkin's stay in Orenburg; • ethnography, everyday life, system of government of Orenburg in the 19th century, considerable attention was paid to the peoples inhabiting the region (Bashkirs, Tatars, Ukrainians, Germans, Jews, Cossacks); • famous Orenburg residents (for example, Nikolay Karamzin and Ivan Krylov are sometimes referred to as natives of the region, Gavrila Derzhavin lived in the city as a child) and researchers of the Orenburg region (Alexander von Humboldt, Ivan Lepyokhin, Peter Simon Pallas, Petr Rychkov, Eduard Friedrich Eversmann). In 1989, the Department of Pre-Soviet History at the Local History Museum became the independent Museum of Orenburg History. In 1992, an additional three museum halls were added to the existing six. Three years later, the building was granted the status of a cultural monument of federal significance by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation. In 2003, new expositions were opened to celebrate the 260th anniversary of the city, including the architecture of Orenburg, the interior of a room belonging to a city dweller from the late 19th to early 20th century, and the exposition titled 'Goodbye, 20th century'. The Orenburg History Museum has received six branches since its establishment: two in 1989, two in 2001, and one each in 2003, 2007, and 2014. As of 2016, the museum has welcomed over 1.5 million visitors, including notable figures such as Mikhail Gluzsky, Mikhail Alexandrovich Ulyanov, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Lyubov Tolkalina, and others. == Rostopovich family's Museum Apartment ==

Between 2001 and 2018, the Museum of Orenburh History's structural subdivision was the Museum Apartment of Leopold and Mstislav Rostropovich. The museum is located in house No. 25 on Ziminskaya Street, where Mstislav Rostropovich lived with his parents, Leopold Rostropovich and Sofia Fedotova, and his sister Veronika during the evacuation period of 1941–1943. The museum opened in November 2001 with the assistance of Yuri Mischeriakov, the head of the Orenburg administration. In 2018, the regional authorities, led by Governor Yuri Berg, purchased half of the building from the private owners, along with the exhibits. The rooms that previously housed the 'municipal' exposition are now regional property. The Joint Museum has been relocated to the Orenburg Regional Museum of Fine Arts. == Exposition ==

The museum has an exhibition area of 1225 m2, 150 m2 of storage space, and 0.4 hectares of greenery. The collection comprises 8.7 thousand items. It includes Bashkir, Kazakh, and Mordovian national dress, personal belongings, and photographs of the poet Yuri Entin, opera singer Lyudmila Filatova, actor Viktor Bortsov, as well as photographs of Heroes of the Soviet Union and Heroes of the Russian Federation, among others. • The exhibition titled 'History of the founding of Orenburg'. It features a model of the Orenburg fortress from the middle and second half of the 18th century as its main element. Additionally, a typical shop from that period, belonging to a merchant from Central Asia, has been recreated. The shop contains various goods such as clothes, crockery, household items, and ancient coins. The exhibition includes a bronze cannon from 1703, a fragment of the first city water pipe, and various objects and documents from the 18th century related to statesmen such as Ivan Kirillov, Ivan Neplyuyev, P.I. Rychkov, and Vasily Tatishchev. Engravings and fragments of the Elizabethan gates are also on display. The language used is clear, concise, and objective, with a formal register and precise word choice. • "Peasant War of 1773-1775 under the leadership of Y.I. Pugachev". The main exhibits include a diorama depicting "The Storming of the Fortress City of Orenburg by the Rebel Army of E.I. Pugachev", a map of the Peasant War, cannonballs, a signal cannon from that period, and a replica of the cage in which Pugachev was held captive for some time. The exposition was supplemented with the items of props of the historical film ''The Captain's Daughter'' based on Pushkin's story ''The Captain's Daughter'' about the events of Pugachev's uprising, such as gun carriages and rebel banners. The movie was filmed in 1998–1999 in the Orenburg Oblast. • "А. S. Pushkin and Orenburg". The exposition is about Alexander Pushkin's visit to Orenburg from 18 to 20 September 1833. He was accompanied by Vladimir Dal on a journey through the Orenburg province to collect information about the Pugachev rebellion, including eyewitness accounts for the A History of Pugachev and for later written ''Captain's Daughter. The hall features canvases by Orenburg artist Nikolay Eryshev, including A.S. Pushkin and V.I. Dal on the Bank of Ural and Pushkin's Conversation with the Cossack Buntova in the Berdskaya Sloboda''. The interior of the noble drawing room is from the first half of the 19th century. It also contains a bust of Pushkin made of Kasli cast iron in 1899. • "Interior of the room of an Orenburg citizen of the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century". It includes a Polish Art Nouveau sideboard, an Austrian Rococo piano, Rococo armchairs by Gambs, bentwood chairs by Tonet brothers, a locally made table, and a chest of drawers. The museum received this interior from the heirs of the Orenburg horse breeder Ivanov. The collection of tableware includes porcelain from the Kuznetsov porcelain and faience factory, silver tableware, pseudo-Russian style faience and glass from the Maltsov factories. There is also clothing from the time period (handmade openwork women's jackets, corsets, men's dickeys, silk handkerchiefs, shoes, etc.) • "The Fate of a Fleeting Style: Russian Art Nouveau in Orenburg". This exhibition recreates the interiors of a bedroom and study from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, using furniture and household items in the Art Nouveau style. It demonstrates the unique characteristics of Art Nouveau in the Russian province during this historical period. == Branches ==

Museum of Taras Shevchenko's guardhouse The Museum of Taras Shevchenko's guardhouse is located at 8 Pravdy St. / 24 Sovetskaya St. It is situated in the basement of the physico-mathematical lyceum building, which served as the city guardhouse in 1850. Taras Shevchenko, who was serving military service in the Orenburg region as a political exile since 1847, was also held here. The museum building was constructed between 1836 and 1841 (or completed after 1842). It was presumably built according to the project of Andrey Gopius, the army architect of the Ural Cossack Army. The building was originally named the 'House of Special Purpose' and was intended to accommodate the engineering and general staff. Valentina Goryacheva married Yuri Gagarin, who was a cadet of the Orenburg Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots from 1955 to 1957. For a period of time, the Gagarins resided at 35 Chicherina Street in the same room as Valentina's parents until Yuri departed for his place of service in the Northern Fleet aviation. Since 1993, the house has been designated as a cultural heritage monument of regional significance. The museum halls feature a memorial interior of the Goryachev family room, the kitchen of a communal flat, a hall detailing Gagarin's stay in Orenburg, and a multimedia hall for watching films about Yuri Gagarin. The building of the museum in the form of a eukterion, in strict classical style, designed by architect S.E. Smirnov, was laid on 22 June 2000 in the presence of the Mayor of Orenburg Genady Donkovtsev and the former head of the city, honorary citizen Y.D. Garankin. The opening took place on 15 August 2003. Museum of Cosmonautics The Museum of Cosmonautics, located at 17 Chelyuskintsev Street, was previously the museum of history and military glory of the Orenburg Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots. It has since been transferred to the Museum of Orenburg History. is visible The museum building was constructed at the behest of Governor-General N. A. Kryzhanovsky of the Orenburg Province. It was built on the site of the former Forstadtskaya (or Voiskovaya) Square for the Orenburg Theological Seminary. The seminary's main building was constructed in the Russian-Byzantine style with the participation of F. D. Markelov, the diocesan architect of the Orenburg diocese. The technical and construction committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs drew up the building's project, which was approved by the Minister General of the Cavalry Alexander Timashev. The building was completed on 11 January 1883, after the rejection of a project developed in Orenburg in 1876. On 24 August 1884, Bishop Veniamin of Orenburg consecrated the seminary and its church, which had been opened the previous year. During the Civil War in 1919, it served as the headquarters of the 28th Ural Regiment. The Orenburg Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots established a room of military glory in 1960 or 1961, The museum is named after Lieutenant General Mikhail Chernyaev. The museum opened on 7 May 2010, the 65th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. It is housed in a building constructed in 1948 by German and Japanese prisoners of war. In 2014, it became a branch of the Museum of Orenburg History. The exhibition is located in a single hall and contains several hundred exhibits on the military history of Russia from the 19th to the 21st centuries. The main focus is on the Great Patriotic War. In 2015, to celebrate the museum's fifth anniversary and the 70th anniversary of the Victory, a diorama titled Berlin. 1945. May was unveiled. It was created by Orenburg stand modellers. The museum hosts scientific and practical conferences, student classes, commemorative and educational events, and oversees the activities of clubs and electives. == References ==