Vorkuta Interdistrict Museum of Local Lore

The Vorkuta Museum of Local Lore was opened on May 3, 1960 on the basis of the decision of the Executive Committee of the Vorkuta City Council of Workers’ Deputies of April 28, 1959. The first exhibitions told about the geology of the region, industrial and civil construction, the coal industry, the development of science, culture and life. In 1963-64, a stationary exposition of the Department of Nature was decorated. In 1965, an art gallery was opened as a department of the museum. In 1966, at the opening of the stationary exposition of the department of storia, the discoverer of the Vorkuta coal deposit Chernov G.A. and the prominent Brattsev L.A. In the same year, 1966, the V.I. Lenin Museum, existing on a voluntary basis at the secondary school E 11, was transformed into a branch of the Vorkuta Museum. Now it is a department of the museum in the village of Vorgashor with the exposition "North: nature and man", which has two halls - "Nature of the region" and "Hall of ethnography".

The museum prepared a justification for the boundaries of the studied area within the framework of the former Pechora county, where in the late 19th and early 20th centuries there were constant economic ties and ethno-cultural relations between the Komi, Russians and Nenets. By the order of the Council of Ministers of the Komi ASSR of December 17, 1968, the Vorkuta District Museum of Local Lore, in connection with the increase in the volume of work on the study of the Far North, received the status of an inter-district museum. In September 1990, the museum opened a large new exhibition hall (exhibition area - 360 sq. m.). Artists of Vorkuta had the opportunity to present their work widely and fully at annual city exhibitions.

The museum funds contain a wonderful collection of theatrical posters and programs of the Vorkuta Musical and Drama Theater, born in the depths of the Gulag of 1940-50, the filing of the newspaper "Zapolyarnaya stoker" (1940-50), unique exhibits on the history of VorkutLag (chess made of bread pulp, handmade greeting cards, objects of camp life). The art collection has more than 700 units. Rich museum funds with unique ethnographic exhibits

(Nenets sacrificial place with Vaigach, collections of Nenets dolls and bags and many, many others). There are very interesting exhibits of fossil flora and fauna (part of the skull of a cave bear, the skull of a sheep bull, the bones of a mammoth). The museum is rich in archaeological objects - more than 14,000 items of storage (the Longat-Yugan treasure of copper and bronze products is exhibited).

In 2000, the Vorkuta Museum, together with the Vorkuta branch of Memorial, received a grant from the Soros Foundation under the Civil Society program for the project “Lessons of the Past – In Education for the Future”.

The museum, being an interdistrict, represents the life and culture of the region since antiquity, Christianization. The prirda hall gives an idea of the unique nature and animal world of the North. The History Hall tells about the industrial development of the region, the Formation of the Pechora Coal Basin, the history of the birth of the city of Vorkuta (the construction of mines and the life of political prisoners VorkutLaga, the theater VorkutLaga, Vorkuta - the front).