On the central street of the city of Kazan, next to the Kremlin, there is the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan. The building is a historical building. Until 1895 it housed Gostiny Dvor. In addition to the main building, the museum has 13 more branches, where the historical and cultural heritage of Tatarstan is stored.
Museum Destinations
The National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan is a research center. It includes activities related to scientific and methodological developments, work with funds, cultural, educational and publishing activities. Conducted research is carried out in the field of history, literature, natural science, ethnography. With its work, the museum makes a great contribution to the cultural history of the Republic.
The museum conducts ethnographic, archaeological, historical and everyday expeditions. This is one of the priority directions of its activity. The knowledge gained during excavations becomes the key to understanding ethnic, cultural and historicalfacts. Since the beginning of the 20th century, ethnographic research has been carried out in different regions of the Republic. One of the most valuable and large of them is the study of the ancient Bolgar, the capital of the Volga Bulgaria.
Today the field of scientific design of museums, expositions and collections is being studied. Priority is given to stock collections dedicated to famous dates in history.
Publishing activity is an important direction. The National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan annually publishes scientific works and catalogs. Posters and booklets are printed before the opening of expositions or exhibitions.
Collections
The museum currently holds about 910 thousand titles. Its archaeological fund is one of the largest. It includes ancient and medieval collections. He also keeps a unique Bulgar collection, which consists of a variety of jewelry belonging to different historical eras. The pearl of the fund is the monuments of the cultures of the Volga and Kama regions - these are complexes of tombstones, settlements dating back to different eras.
The museum contains antique, Egyptian collections, items from India, China, Japan, the Far East and many others.
The ethnographic collection preserves the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Volga-Kama region. It includes household items, samples of national costumes, kalfaks, skullcaps, namazlyks, jewelry, shoes, musical instruments.
The numismatic collection consists of more than one hundred thousand items. It includescoins, banknotes, tokens, badges, medals, awards from different states and different eras. The collection includes Golden Horde, Eastern, Western European, Russian coins, as well as coins from the times of Alexander the Great and Byzantium.
The collection of written fund includes about 130 thousand titles. It includes scrolls and letters of the XVI-XVII centuries. The collection contains about 300 personal collections. It includes scientific works, works of cultural figures, archives of professors, politicians, as well as a collection of early printed books and manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Tatar.
The memorial collection includes works created in the 19th-20th centuries by figures of Russian and Tatar culture.
Exposures
The profile of the museum is local history. It contains information about different cultural and historical eras. The National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan presents expositions from the point of view of combining nature, culture and history of various peoples.
Exhibitions are focused on topics related to the ancient and medieval history of Tatarstan, money circulation, trade, Kazan province.
The exposition "Ancient history of Tatarstan" presents artifacts dating from the period from the Stone Age to the end of the first millennium AD. It is built in such a way that it shows the life and life of the peoples living on the territory of the region in ancient times. The exposition consists of several sections. One of them is called "Man and Environment". It shows how a personinteracted with nature in the course of evolution. The next section is called "The World of Things". It demonstrates the development and technological methods of processing bones, stone, bronze, and iron. The third section is called Home and the Outside World. It shows a reconstructed dwelling from the early Iron Age.
The exposition "Medieval history of Tatarstan" presents artifacts related to the Volga-Kama Bulgaria, the state of the X-XIII centuries. It is based on archaeological finds from the territories of settlements. These include tools, jewelry, pottery, fragments of building and street decoration.
The exposition "Commodity-money relations and trade routes in the X-XV centuries" demonstrates coins, trade items and cartographic materials. They are evidence that in the Middle Ages the region had a variety of trade relations.
The exposition "Kazan Province in the 18th century" demonstrates the most important milestones in the history of the region. It presents items related to the reigns of Peter I and Catherine II.
The exposition "Tatar Gold Pantry" demonstrates Tatar jewelry of the 17th-19th centuries. She is unique.
Tours
The museum provides several excursion directions. The sightseeing tour takes place within the walls of the main building. She introduces the exhibited exhibits, tells about their history. Visitors are presented with 8 themes of excursions.
Museum routes, in addition to the expositions of the main building, offerget acquainted with the collections located in different parts of the city. At the service of visitors are such programs as "Legends of Kazan", "How golden time rolls in Kazan", "Pages of the musical history of Kazan", "And the saved world remembers …". The duration of each route is an average of 2.5 hours.
The museum offers walking, bus and out-of-town tours. There is also an opportunity to attend workshops with a variety of topics.
When buying an entrance ticket to the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, the price depends on the preferences of the visitor and the type of services provided. The cost of visiting excursions and museum routes is different. It is directly related to the richness of the program and the number of participants. An entrance ticket without excursion service will cost schoolchildren 50, pensioners - 70, adults - 120 rubles, students - free of charge.
Services
The National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan offers to listen to lectures that tell about the history of the city of Kazan, famous people, legends, the history of the museum building and much more. In addition, there are lectures-shows, during which museum items are demonstrated. They are 45 minutes long.
The museum has a library, where today there are about 19 thousand copies. It can be used by all museum visitors by appointment.
The Museum Fund also offers its services. When visiting it, you can use manuscripts, early printed books and objects. Possiblephotography of museum items.
The museum has a restoration workshop. It employs specialists-restorers in wood, paper, metal, fabric. Items are being restored for the central museum, its branches and for other expositions.
Museum clubs
Museum work includes cultural and educational programs and events. Within the walls of the museum and its branches there are several clubs - "Sovremennik", a club of lovers of Kazan antiquity, "Keeper of Antiquities", "Local History Environments", "Music Lounge", "Literary Salon". The military-historical club "Vityaz" is engaged in the study of the history of military art, fencing, and the reconstruction of objects. The club takes part in all-Russian and international events. He is the organizer of the Zilantkom festival, the East-West tournament, and implements the Beznen Tarikh (Our History) project.
All clubs are creative and research communities with free participation. In the process of work, presentations and discussions are held. The National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan invites you to take part in the study of history, literature, crafts and much more. Such an activity will make leisure cognitive, broaden your horizons.
In studying the history of such a beautiful city as Kazan, the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan will be an excellent guide and source of information.
