Sheltozersky Veps Ethnographic Museum

Sheltozersk Veps Ethnographic Museum named after R.P. Lonin is a museum of the indigenous small-numbered people of the Russian Federation - Veps.

The museum was founded as a folk museum in 1967 by the famous local historian, writer, collector of Vepsian folklore Rurik Petrovich Lonin (1930-2009). For 13 years, the National Museum has collected unique collections about traditional occupations and crafts, life and economy, folk beliefs and Veps holidays. It is no coincidence that in 1971 among the national museums of the republic, the Sheltozersk Museum of Local Lore was recognized as the best. In 1980, the museum received the status of a state museum and became first a department, and in 1987, a branch of the Karelian State Museum of Local History.

The first director of the state museum was the historian, researcher Alexander Pavlovich Maksimov. Rurik Lonin and Alexander Maksimov worked together on the exposition of the Veps Museum, which was to be located in the restored Melkin house built in 1814. The main exposition was the famous historian Mikhail Yurievich Dankov, artist Dmitry Uchuvatkin. In June 1991, the doors of the Melkin house opened for the first visitors.

In 2010, the museum was named after its founder. Now the full name of the museum is the Sheltozero Veps Ethnographic Museum named after R.P. Lonin.