Mineralogical Museum of the Geological Institute of the Kola Scientific Center RAS

The Belkov Museum of Geology and Mineralogy is a division of the Federal Budgetary Science Institution of the Geological Institute of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The museum was created in the 30s of the last century at the Kola Scientific Station of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Khibiny, which has now been transformed into the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

At the end of the Great Patriotic War, a fire at the station destroyed the collection. In the post-war years, the Geological Institute again created a museum. Its creation is associated with the name of the Honored Scientist, Doctor of Geological Sciences Igor Vladimirovich Belkov (1917-1989). A great contribution to the development of the museum, its scientific and educational activities were made by T.V. Novokhatskaya, M.G. Fedotova, T.M. Pisareva and E.M. Kalinin.

The museum is a collection of more than 9,000 samples of minerals, ores and rocks of the Kola Peninsula, most of which are rare and unique. The exposition of the museum consists of a systematic collection of minerals; a collection of new minerals first discovered on the Kola Peninsula; a collection of ores and other minerals; a collection of rocks. From a scientific point of view, the most valuable is the collection of new minerals. For a wide range of visitors, the most attractive collection of colorful minerals from the unique mineral richness of geological objects: the Khibinsky and Lovozersky alkaline arrays, the Kovdor massif and the amazonite pegmatites of the Western Caves.

The museum is engaged in scientific activities - work with mineral collections, compilation of catalogs and lists of minerals of the Kola Peninsula, computer databases, participation in meetings and publication of articles on museum activities, as well as popularization of knowledge on mineralogy and minerals of the Kola region among visitors and general educational activities - conducting lectures and practical classes with students of the geological specialty of the Apatit branch of the Murmansk GTU