Khakass National Museum of Local Lore named after L.R. Kyzlasov

Republic of Khakassia
ul. Pushkina, 28a, Abakan, Rep. Khakassia, 655012
Phones: (3902) 306-411
Web site: https://hnkm.ru/

Khakass National Museum of Local Lore named after L.R. Kyzlasov is considered to be one of the richest regional museums in the country. Currently, its collection includes more than a hundred thousand different exhibits representing the history of the region from the Paleolithic era to the 20th century. These are huge majestic steles with the faces of ancient deities, and masterpieces of petroglyphic art, including stone slabs with petroglyphs, Tashtyk masks, and much more. For instance, one of the most interesting displays is called The Stone Chronicle of Khakassia. We can see stone statues and slabs of the Okunev (late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BC) and Tagar (8th–3rd centuries BC) archaeological cultures in it. All these exhibits were found during excavations on the territory of the republic. The museum is also proud of its collection of ethnographic objects of Khakassian peoples, wherein tableware, clothes, shoes, equipment, hunting tackles, musical instruments, jewelry and other household items are presented. And one of the exhibits especially favored by tourists is an exact (both in size and interior) copy of a Khakass yurt. In it, you can demonstrably study how the Khakass people lived in ancient times, take a look at various household items and discover their purpose. They are all genuine! The museum has its own natural science collection. It includes, for example, gemstones and samples of minerals, petrified trunks of fossil trees, shells of mollusks, and fragments of the petrified bottom of the Paleozoic sea with their inhabitants. The collection also contains perfectly preserved bone remains of mammoths, bison and wooly rhinoceroses. It is worth noting that a separate room has been dedicated to the zoological collection, which includes stuffed animals, carcasses, skulls, and horns of mammals and birds. For an additional fee you can not only book a tour of the museum, but also take part in a “guest ceremony” and a theatrical wedding.

In the summer of 1931, a meeting of the Presidium of the Khakass regional executive committee was held and it was decided that a regional museum would be established in Abakan. The first exhibitions were divided into three sections by topic: the nature of the region, its history and its socialist construction. From the very beginning of its activities, the museum was regularly replenished with exhibits found during scientific research expeditions, in which the study of which historians and representatives of creative professions were involved. Thus, the artist, archaeologist and ethnographer Vladimir Kapelko rendered invaluable assistance to the museum, helping to copy ancient petroglyphic drawings that fell into the flooded area during the construction of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. For a long time the museum was located in the premises of the House of Culture, in wooden buildings, it was then moved to a two-story exhibition hall. And in 2012, construction works of a new museum cultural complex began, and a modern beautiful building with a total area of 30 thousand square meters was erected, where the museum was moved to in summer 2017. The museum was named after the famous researcher of the ancient history of Siberia Leonid Romanovich Kyzlasov, who made a significant contribution to the replenishment of its collection.

The building is designed in the form of a traditional Khakass dwelling: a yurt. In 1989 the collection of Irina Nikolayevna Karachakova, a famous Khakass sculptor and collector, was donated to the Khakass Museum of Local Lore. Her collection includes about 2,000 items, including sculptures, prints, drawings, letters, personal belongings, paintings by Russian and Western artists, furniture from the 18–19th centuries and much more. She bequeathed all this to her fellow countrymen, so the collection ended up in the museum immediately after her death. The museum is often a venue for live exhibitions from the world of fauna. And recently a children’s center has been organized in it, where classes for children according to specially developed programs are held.