Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War

The museum is the largest collection of historical and cultural monuments of 1941-1945 in the Republic of Belarus. The museum was opened in Minsk on October 22, 1944, just a year after the beginning of the liberation of Belarus from the German occupiers. It is the only museum of the republic that functioned during the war.

The first exposition of the museum was based on the exhibition "Belarus lives, Belarus struggles", which opened in early November 1942 in the State Historical Museum in Moscow. The history of the museum is connected with the activities of the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement and military liberation operations in 1943-1944, when unique exhibits were collected directly from the scenes. Therefore, the exposition of the museum is distinguished by extraordinary authenticity and genuine historicism.

Since 1966, the museum is located in a specially built building on the central avenue of Minsk. On the site in the courtyard of the museum are samples of military equipment and weapons of the Red Army during the war. The museum exposition is located in 27 halls on three floors and includes more than 7 thousand exhibits telling about the horrors of war, the cruelty of the aggressors and the heroism of the Soviet people.

Especially interesting are the halls dedicated to the history of the partisan movement in Belarus. Samples of weapons, battle banners, documents and awards are stored here – everything that can tell about the heroic resistance of the Belarusian people.