Museum of History of Buryatia named after M.N. Khangalov

The Museum of History of Buryatia named after M.N. Khangalov was opened on October 10, 1923 on the basis of the Museum of Antiquities under the Society for the Study of the Baikal Region, organized in 1911. Activists of the museum were teachers, officials, merchants, gymnasists of Verkhneudinsk (this was the name of our city until 1923). During the Civil War, the Museum of Antiquities did not work. In 1921, it was reopened for visitors under a new name - the Baikal Regional Museum.

In 1923, with the formation of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR, the museum was taken under the control of the new government of autonomy and directly the Ministry of Public Education and was renamed the Buryat-Mongolian National Museum. In 1931, it was temporarily closed, and in 1934, an independent Antireligious Museum was opened in the Odigitri Cathedral, later these two museums were merged into the Central Museum. In 1946, it was called the “Museum of Local Lore of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR”. The name of the first Buryat scientist-ethnographer Matvei Nikolaevich Khangalov was assigned to the museum in 1958.

Last 2008, our museum celebrated the 85th anniversary of its creation and the 150th anniversary of M.N. Khangalov.

The collection of the museum is unique (more than 110 thousand exhibits) and has no analogues in Russia, in particular in the history and culture of Buddhism, the richness of archaeological collections; the fund of rare books contains rare encyclopedias of B. Granat, Efron. During the years of perestroika, more than 2,500 Orthodox and Buddhist icons, sculptures, and vestments of clergy were transferred to religious organizations. A unique gift of the museum of the current Buddhist sangha was the so-called Sandal Buddha - a work of art of world significance. Experts believe that this is a lifetime image of the Buddha. According to legend, the sculpture was brought to Buryatia during the Boxer uprising in China. The sculpture was bought and brought by Tsorzhilam from the Aegitui datsan. The Buddha’s second discovery occurred in 1930, when the sculpture was almost cut for firewood. In 1991, Sandal Buddha was transferred to the Egitu datsan of the Eravninsky district.

The pride of the museum is the collection of handwritten and xylographic Buddhist books, including the famous Atlas of Tibetan Medicine. Several sheets of the restored Atlas are on display at the Buddhist Art exhibition on the third floor of the main building. Amazing for contemporaries are Buddhist works printed in the datsans of Buryatia by the method of xylography. The text is pre-cut on boards, then mineral dyes are applied, and hundreds of thousands of sheets of works of Buryat lamas – philosophers, healers, translators, interpreters – serve to preserve the spiritual heritage of the past.