The Museum of Yoshkar-Ola

The Museum of History of Yoshkar-Ola

The Museum of History of Yoshkar-Ola is located in an old estate house of Trofim Chulkov, a merchant and a lumberman. The Museum is one of the most visited historical sites of the city. Chulkov’s estate house consists of two buildings – a wooden one-storey building with a mezzanine built in the second half of the XIX century, and a two-storey stone building built in 1911 and designed by Nickolay Trofimovitch Chulkov. Both buildings have been preserved to the present time as historical and cultural monuments. Since 1996 till today in the stone house there is the Museum of History of Yoshkar-Ola.

T.Evseyev National Museum of the Mari El Republic

The museum was opened on March 4, 1920. The history of the museum’s foundation is closely linked with the name of Timofey Evseyev, well-known local historian and researcher of the Mari people’s culture and life. The archaeological collection, the richest materials of history, ethnography, material and spiritual culture are of a great interest. The museum exhibitions reflect specific forms of flora and fauna of the region, traditions and customs of the Maris and other Finno-Ugric peoples, as well as all ethnic groups living in the Republic of Mari El: Russians, Tatars, Chuvashes, etc.

The Republican Museum of Fine Arts

The Republican Museum of Fine Arts is a custodian of the cultural heritage of the Republic of Mari El in the field of fine arts. The museum fund holds more than 7000 items. There are the Mari collections of fine and applied arts, Russian paintings, drawings, sculptures, objects of decorative arts (late XIX – early XX centuries), Western European paintings and graphics (single copies).

The National Art Gallery

In 2007 in the Republic of Mari El the building of the National Art Gallery was opened on the Obolensky-Nogotkov Square. The Gallery meets the highest current requirements for exhibitions and has a good level of technical equipment. Exhibition halls of the Gallery are located on two floors. The 1200 square meters of the halls allow implementing different major exhibition projects including exhibition of Russian museums’ collections. Every year the National Art Gallery opens to Mari El residents and guests at least 10 temporary exhibitions of leading museums and private collections.

Klyuchnikov-Palantay Memorial Museum

Klyuchnikov-Palantay Memorial Museum was opened in 1961 at the 75th anniversary of the founder of Mari professional music – Ivan Klyuchnikov-Palantay. The museum is located in the house which is protected as a historical monument. Here the composer spent the last years of his life. In the house-museum there are three rooms. They reconstructed a typical interior for provincial intellectuals of the first third of the 20th century. The exhibition includes memorabilia and original things of Palantay’s family – the furniture, the manuscripts, the musical instruments and the household items. In the house-museum exhibitions, meetings with composers, musical evenings are held.

Museum of the History of the Gulag

The Gulag History Museum is situated in an old house built in 1835 in the historic part of Yoshkar-Ola. In the nineteenth century a beautiful house belonged to the merchant Talantsev and was used as a hotel and a beer store for local noble people. During the period of Stalinist repression the house was a political prison. In 1923 the house was nationalized and given to the OGPU NKVD. The Gulag prisoners were people of different professions and religions. In declassified archives they found cases of Mari priests, artisans, peasants, as well as government representatives. Nowadays the Museum was reconstructed with the maximum reliability to the prison. There are a torture chamber, investigators offices and prison cells. Collected artifacts and documents tell the tens of thousands of victims of the NKVD. All the exhibits of “Mari Golgotha” are authentic; each of it creates an atmosphere of the Great Terror era. People under 16 are not permitted to the Museum due to demonstration of torture instruments.

The Museum of Glasses

The Museum was opened by local enthusiasts to tell the residents and guests of the city about the history of glasses and interesting facts related to glasses. In the museum it is possible to see the glasses of the 13th century made of mammoth ivory, of whale baleen and of turtle shell. The museum shows how the glasses fashion varied from the 12th century to the present days. In the museum you can admire amazing products of the old masters from different countries.

The Museum of Woods

Once you open the door to the museum, you immediately find yourself in the world of Mari woods. To the right, you will meet a girl in the Mari national costume with basket of mushrooms in hands at the birch grove. To the left – a pine forest with one of the most common of its inhabitants – a black-cock belling on a branch. All the beauty of Mari woods is reflected in the diorama “The Seasons”. Here the visitors have the opportunity to admire falling leaves in the autumn forest, see a fox catching up a hare on the snow, and hear a spring brook gurgling. The diorama “A forester’s cordon” will present you the life of a Mari forester. The next diorama located at the museum is a forester office: a map, directories, the Forest Code, a field bag, and other inherent attributes of the professional forestry. And another colorful diorama “Apiary” brings to a visitor a honey smell of Mari honey. In addition to the exposition of dioramas there are 22 information booths, telling visitors about the multifaceted and so diverse Mari forestry life. The information will be interesting to professionals, adults and children, as well as residents of the republic and its guests.

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