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Donetsk, 83048, 189a Chelyuskintsev Street
Tel. (0622) 55-67-57
The Donetsk museum of regional studies was founded in December 1924 and appears
to be one of the largest museums in Ukraine.
The formation of the museum was held in the 30-ies of the XX century, when the
community of the city Stalino, the teachers and the students of the Mining Institute collected the specimens of
minerals, objects of numismatics, photos and documents illustrating the background of the metallurgical plant
belonging to the Novorossiisk Ltd.
In the 30-ies and 40-ies the museum functioned as the museum of history of the
revolution. During the occupation of the region by the German fascist invaders the majority of the collection was
destroyed by the fire. Only in December 1943, after the liberation of the city, the historical museum, later on
the museum of regional studies was reconstructed.
The background of the museum is, first of all, the history of formation of its
collection.
In 1927 the museum has got the objects from the exhibition "10 years of the Soviet
Power in Donbas" including the documents, photos, goods produced by the industrial enterprises.
In the 30-ies - 50-ies the sufficient contribution to the museum fund was made by
Mykola Omelyanovych Makarenko and Victor Mykhailovych Yevseev, the famous researchers in the field of regional
studies.
In the 50-ies the museum has got a unique collection on the history of the
Usivka metallurgical plant, cult objects, the weapons of the XVIII-XIX centuries, rare books, the rich collection
of objects of every-day life, the monuments of spiritual culture of the Priazovya Greeks.
The 60-ies were fruitful years too as for formation of the collection of the
museum. The museum fund was enriched by the unique collection of ethnographic materials of the first half of
the XIX century, including the Ukrainian woman's cloths, embroidered shirts, man's cloths.
The 70-ies - 80-ies were the period of annual expeditions because of which many
collections were formed. The fund was enriched by interesting objects of the brass and bronze periods, of the
Scythian and Sarmatian culture, the ones belonging to the tribes of log cabins' and catacombs'
culture.
The archeological expeditions of the 90-ies brought rich materials to the museum.
Among them there are some objects never known in the territory of the region: ceramic Cossack pipes, flints and
strikers, fragments of costumes, children's toys, women's and men's ornaments, glass objects, i.e. pieces of bottles,
goblets, etc., ceramic dishes and pottery, tiles for facing stoves.
Nowadays the fund of the Donetsk regional museum of regional studies includes the
exhibits referring to nature, history and culture of the Donetsk region, the paleontological and mineral collections,
materials of archeological researches found in the territory of the region, monuments of the Cossacks' times,
ethnographic collections, written, oral, artistic sources, photos presenting the history of the region and
reflecting its contemporaniety.
The main fund of the museum and of its out-of-city departments includes more than
120 thousand exhibits. Among them there is a unique paleontological collection: the remains of fossil
animals - mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, buffaloes; imprints of fossil plants, specimens of petrified
trunks; monuments of international importance - the Amvrosievka encampment of primitive men and the territory
of tribes' hunt, the ancient tools and decorations of the eneolithic period from the Mariupol grave including
dishes, decorations, fragments of weapons from burial mounds of the Ages of Bronze and Iron, the objects
from ancient settlements of the log cabins' culture; the Scythian monuments, like dishes, decorations,
arrowheads from the mound "Dvugorba Mogyla" (two-humped tomb), the burial places of the epoch of Polovtsy
of the settlement Novo-Ivanivka of the Amvrosievka district, etc.
The collection of the materials of the Cossacks' period of the settlement Cossatska
Prystan is a unique one too. It includes icons, crosses, decorations, objects of every-day life, the
Cossacks' weapons, cult objects, cloths, collection of the Greek fabrics, headgears, etc. The numismatic
collection includes copper and silver coins from hidden treasures of the XV-XVIII centuries, the collection
of books - geographic and botanic atlases of the XVII century, religious books of the XVII-XVIII centuries,
including the ones in Greek, books about nature and history.
The fund of the museum preserves numerous objects of everyday life of different
strata of population of the region, tools of the leading local professions, i.e. of miners, metallurgists
and peasants. The unique exhibits are the models of the plants of the Novorossiisk, Ltd. and in the settlement
of Uzivka, which were created in the end of the XIX century for the All-Russian industrial and artistic exhibition
in Nizhy Novgorod (1896) as well as the statue cut of rock salt in the
end of the XIX century.
The personal things which belonged to prominent scientists, astronauts,
artists and public figures are preserved in the museum: M.S. Khrushchev, S.S. Prokofiev, V.I. Nemyrovych-Danchenko,
A.I. Kuindgy, V.V. Bervi-Flerovsky, I. Beregovyi, L. Kisim, the day-book of Mendeleev, etc.
The objects made of precious metals belong to the "golden" fund of the museum:
archeological objects, coins, orders and medals, decorations, cult objects, etc.
The collection of the museum is enlarged by holding archeological, ethnographic,
naturalistic expeditions, by work with the inhabitants of the city, donations of enterprises and other organizations,
by purchasing objects of interest.
The important role in archeological investigations belongs to the international
conference "The Paleolith in the Left-Bank Ukraine". In the work of the 4 conferences over
80 professionals from different well-known archeological centers of the USA, Poland, Russia and Ukraine took part.
The results of the researches of the scientists working in the museum are published in the collection "Litopys of
Donbas" and in the specialized journal "Archeological Almanac".
The Donetsk museum of regional studies is the regional research and methodic
center supervising 143 museums of the region, regularly organizing courses, seminars, conferences for their
workers and helping in creation of new expositions.
Annually over 150 thousand visitors attend the museum.
The general territory of the museum equals to 6962,9 square meters, the exposition
is about 3412,8 square meters, the fund territory is 570,1 square meters.
In 2002 148 staff workers worked in the museum, 58 of them being scientists,
including 3 Candidates of Historical Science. The Director of the museum is E.I. Denisenko, an Honored Worker
of Culture of Ukraine.
Nowadays the museum is a whole complex of regional studies including besides the
exposition of the main museum the State Museum of Industry of Ukraine, the Museum of History of the Velyko-Anadolsky
wood, the museums of V. Nemyrovych-Danchenko and S.Prokofiev.
The museum suggests:
- general and subject excursions about the exposition and separate exhibitions;
- meetings with veterans of war and labor;
- multiprofile educational museum programs;
- holding museum holidays to the events of people's calendar;
- meetings with creative artistic intellectuals in the museum club "U Nemyrovycha";
- festivals of national cultures;
- club for specialists of people's studies.
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