Museum-hauptwach T.G. Shevchenko

The memorial museum was opened in the year of the 175th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko – in 1989. The building, in the basement of which the museum is located, was built in 1843 for the needs of the office of one engineering unit. It was here in April 1851 that the famous poet and artist was arrested for participating in a secret organization that went down in history as the Cyril-Methodiev brotherhood.

The exposition of the museum reconstructs the typical situation of the guardhouse of the XIX century - a small cell of the arrested, a guard room. On the windows are massive forged grilles, which are depicted in one of the drawings of Shevchenko. At the entrance to the guardhouse from the main street is a Cossack in ammunition of that era – a very realistic dummy. The materials presented to the attention of visitors in the main exhibition hall, in detail reflect the various stages of the difficult fate of Taras Shevchenko. The museum exhibits documents about the stay of Shevchenko in Orsk, the Aral expedition, Orenburg, as well as about seven years of stay on the Mangyshlak Peninsula.

Taras Shevchenko was arrested at the guardhouse because of a violation of the imperial ban - Tsar Nicholas I forbade the exiled poet to write and even draw, however, inspired by participation in a scientific expedition, Shevchenko ignored this instruction and created several portraits of Orenburg residents.