Local history museum

In August 1916, the Evpatoria City Council, in response to the appeal of Professor M.I. Rostovtsev and a member of the Imperial Archaeological Commission L.A. Moiseev about the need to study Kerkinitida, decided to establish a “museum for storing ancient finds” in the city. The building became the place of storage of the collection.

The history of the Evpatoria Museum of Local Lore begins on February 1, 1921, when the headquarters of the 46th Infantry Division for the Museum “Art of Antiquities” was allocated a building located on Soviet Street. Since then, in the house of entrepreneur Yufuda Geelevich, in one of the original buildings of Evpatoria built in 1912, the city museum is located. As early as July 20, 1921, in the minutes of the meeting of the Ohris section, it was noted that the museum could be opened to the general public, which happened ten days later - July 30. Later, the museum from the “Art of Antiquities” was transformed into an archaeological and ethnographic museum.

Old photo of the museum building

In 1925, the museum operated 5 departments: ethnographic, atheistic, archaeological, resort, production forces and production relations, and the museum itself was reorganized into the Museum of Local Studies. In 1933, the profile of the museum was finally determined as a local history, but the painting and ethnographic departments were preserved. Significant damage was caused to the museum by the occupation of Yevpatoria during the Great Patriotic War. Just 15 days after the liberation of Evpatoria on May 1, 1944, the newspaper “Banner of Victory” reported that the local history museum resumed its activities. Since the mid-1940s, the exposition of all local history museums was built according to a single scheme - the department of natural history, the department of the pre-revolutionary past and the department of the history of Soviet society. Painting and ethnographic departments were not restored after the war. The capital reconstruction of the building, which began in 1979, significantly expanded the fund and exhibition space of the museum.

The building of the museum in Soviet times

In 1988, in a specially built hall, the diorama "Eupatorian landing" opens. January 5, 1942", created by order of the city Honored Artist of the RSFSR V.B. Tautiev, who worked in the Studio of Military Artists named after M. Grekov. History of Evpatoria - Evpatoria Museum of Local Lore In 1989, the museum was the first in Crimea to open an ethnographic exposition. In 2000, on Duvanovskaya Street opposite the central entrance to the museum under a glass pyramidal dome, the archaeological complex "North-Western suburb of the ancient city of Kerkinitida (V-III centuries BC)" was created. Near the excavation, the museum placed an open-air lapidary exhibition. In 2012, the Museum of the History of the Crimean War was opened, which is a department of military history of the local history museum. Collection

Exposition of the Museum "Ancient Greek polis of Kerkinitida"

Exposition of the museum "World War II in Evpatoria"

The formation of the collection of the Evpatoria Museum of Local History began in 1916, when the city government decided to create an archaeological museum in the city with a centuries-old history. In 1921, antique finds, porcelain and books from the Karaite National Library “Karai Bitikligi”, created in 1913, numismatic items, textiles, paintings formed the basis of the collection of the newly created museum. But most of the collection collected during the first stage of the museum’s existence, as well as its archives, were looted during the fascist occupation. In April 1944, it was established that a large number of valuable carpets, silver coins and other items were taken from the museum, the damage was estimated at 600 thousand rubles. To date, more than 100,000 items are stored in the collection. The largest group of storage is the documentary fund, which includes more than 45 thousand museum items of the XYIII – XXI centuries. Most of the collection is materials characterizing the life of the city, its health resorts, enterprises and individual citizens. The documents reflect various stages of both world history and the history of Russia, the USSR, and Crimea. A special place in the collection is occupied by about 300 books from the Karaite National Library of Karay-Bitikliga, publications of the local press from 1916 to the 1980s, filings of central, republican and departmental newspapers during the Great Patriotic War. 36,000 items include a collection of archaeology, covering the chronological period from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages. In the collection, formed on the basis of materials of archaeological expeditions of 1896-2006 on the territory of the North-Western Crimea, in general, and the ancient city of Kerkinitid, in particular, there are both mass material and unique items. Among the latter, one of the largest collections of Scythian stone sculptures in Russia, four of the eight reliefs found in the North-Western Crimea depicting the resting Heracles, painted terracotta. For almost a century and a half, Evpatorian photographers recorded the most important milestones in the life of the city and its individual citizens. The earliest photograph is dated August 1877. Now the collection of photographs has more than 5400 items. More than 5000 household items, products of decorative and applied arts are tangible evidence of the life of the city of XYIII – XX century. Among them are samples of furniture, Russian and Oriental porcelain, the work of Karaite and Crimean Tatar masters of gold embroidery. The collection of numismatics, numbering more than 4300 items, presents coins of ancient cities of the Northern Black Sea region, the Crimean Khanate, Russia and foreign countries, orders, medals, breastplates belonging to the inhabitants of Evpatoria, as well as commemorative and souvenir medals and signs. Of the collection of more than 1000 bons - paper banknotes of Russia, the USSR, foreign countries - the most interesting are the bonds of the Evpatorian government and consumer societies of the city, issued in the period 1916-1918. The Art Fund includes more than 900 paintings and graphics. The pride of the museum are watercolors displaying the restoration of the Evpatorian resort, made by academician of battle painting N.S. Samokish in 1920, as well as the works of Evpatorian artists: teachers of gymnasiums of the city G.H. Boyadzhiev and A.L. Opritsa and a student of N.S. Samokish, a member of the Union of Artists Yu.V. Volkov. A special place in the collections of the museum is occupied by more than 1000 items of natural science collection. Here are stuffed representatives of steppe and marine fauna, samples of vegetation of the steppe and the city, paleontological remains of ancient animals, minerals. Icons also tell about the life of Yevpatoria and its citizens (about 100 items, the earliest of the items stored in the museum were written in the XYIII century), samples of weapons (more than 200 items of cold and firearms from the times of the Crimean Khanate to the Great Patriotic War), negatives (includes a little more than 80 museum items, especially glass negatives of the 1950s with the image of the Cherkes-Schukin family)