Kotelnich Regional Paleontological Museum

Kashtanov Sergey Grigorievich in 1933 near Kotelnich discovered the first 2 skeletons of pareiasaurs. Since 1990, regular excavations of pareiasaurs and other fossil reptiles have been carried out near Kotelnich, the results of these works became a great scientific discovery and caused the creation of a unique museum. Many of its exhibits are of great scientific significance and have no analogues in the world.

Established in 1994, the Kotelnich Paleontological Museum is located near the famous Kotelnichsky location of fossil vertebrate animals. The museum is located in the district center of the Kirov region - the city of Kotelniche and is called the Kotelnich Paleontological Museum. A unique exposition is presented here, telling about the results of many years of research work carried out by the museum staff at the state natural monument “Kotelnich location of pareiasaurs”, stretching along the right bank of the Vyatka River almost 25 km from Kotelnich to the village of Vishkil.

On September 10, 2011, the opening of a new museum exposition of the Kotelnich Paleontological Museum - a branch of the Kogkuk "Vyatka Paleontological Museum" took place. The development of a fundamentally new exposition solution lasted more than 2 years, several variants of three-dimensional exposition models were performed, after which the optimal option was chosen that reflects the specific location of pareiasaurs.

Two halls with a total area of 90 square meters are used to accommodate exhibits and information modules representing the diversity of fossil animals and plants of the Permian period. Here you can see numerous skeletal remains of ancient parareptilia of pareiasaurs, reaching a length of 2 m, herbivorous animal reptiles of dicynodonts and suminia, predatory reptiles of gorgonops, also here are therocephalus, many other creatures that inhabited the Earth millions of years before the appearance of dinosaurs. Especially for the new exhibition, sculptor Andrei Skvortsov made a large-scale reconstruction of the paleolandscape with reduced animals and plants by about 10 times, representing the world as it would have been seen 260 million years ago, in the place where the city of Kotelnich is now located.

Every summer, the museum staff organizes on-site excursions, in which, if you are lucky, you can even observe the work of paleontologists during the annual excavations.