House-Museum of V.A.Rusanov

The museum was opened on December 25, 1982 in the Rusanov Memorial House after its restoration on Rusanov Street (formerly Matsnevsky Lane). The exposition of the museum reveals the life and activities of the outstanding traveler and polar explorer Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov. Rusanov studied at the Orel Men's Classical Gymnasium, graduated from the Orel Theological Seminary. In his youth he took part in the revolutionary movement. After serving political exile, he emigrated to France, where he graduated from the Sorbonne Faculty of Natural Sciences. Passionate for the Arctic, Rusanov made five expeditions to Novaya Zemlya. He was the first Russian scientist to circumnavigate the southern (1911) and northern (1910) islands of Novaya Zemlya, and initiated a number of new directions in the study of the polar outskirts of Russia. In his works, V.A. Rusanov was one of the first to scientifically substantiate the problems of developing the Northern Sea Route.