The Karaganda Regional History Museum

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The Karaganda Regional History Museum

The Karaganda Regional History Museum, one of the largest in Karaganda Oblast, holds an esteemed place in Kazakhstan’s museum network. Originally established as a polytechnic museum on November 7, 1932, under the direction of the People’s Commissariat of Coal of the RSFSR, it owes part of its foundation to Leningrad Polytechnic Museum, which provided various mining machinery models. Six years later, the museum was officially designated as a regional history museum, introducing new departments dedicated to history, nature, and socialist development.

At its inception, the Karaganda Museum of Local Lore boasted 712 exhibits and employed seven staff members. The museum featured a photography lab, a narrow-format film projector, a slide projector, and a phonograph. In 1936, an expedition from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR enriched the museum’s collection with an array of mineral samples, laying the groundwork for its extensive geological displays.

In 1940, under the leadership of Professor Kiselyov, the museum’s team embarked on their first archaeological expedition, uncovering 15 Bronze Age burial sites that revealed unique artifacts from the Andronovo culture. During the Great Patriotic War, museum staff established a defense department, preserving the history and stories of Karaganda’s soldiers and civilians on the home front.

Post-war, the museum directed its attention to collecting ethnographic materials and documenting traditional Kazakh ornamentation, collaborating with the Kazakh SSR’s Institute of History and Ethnography. Numerous historical and ethnographic expeditions enriched the museum’s collection, including a 1962 archaeological mission led by academician Margulan, which uncovered an array of Bronze Age artifacts in Central Kazakhstan.

Renamed as the Karaganda Historical and Regional Museum in 1964, the museum continued to expand its ethnographic collections. In 1965, a pivotal expedition contributed new artifacts illustrating the lifestyles of settlers, and a 1969 archaeobotanical expedition in the Betpak-Dala desert brought in further significant discoveries. Since 1979, the museum has occupied a two-story building on Yerubaeva Street. Undergoing reorganization in 2001, it now stands as the largest museum in the region.

The museum’s 16 exhibit halls span approximately 1,800 square meters within a total area of around 2,000 square meters, showcasing over 134,000 items. Organized into five scientific and research departments—Archaeology and Ethnography, General and Modern History, Tour and Outreach, Research and Methodology, and Collections—these exhibitions guide visitors through the rich history of the region from ancient times to the present.

Exhibit Halls of the Karaganda Museum of Local Lore:

  • Hall 1 (Introductory Hall): State symbols of the Republic of Kazakhstan
  • Hall 2: The origin of life on Earth
  • Hall 3: Nature
  • Hall 4: Archaeology, with Paleolithic and Neolithic artifacts
  • Hall 5: Traditional Kazakh society
  • Hall 6: Saka culture
  • Hall 7: Early 20th-century Kazakh nationalist movements
  • Hall 8: Regional experiences during the emergence of totalitarianism in the 1920s–30s
  • Hall 9: The development of the Karaganda coal basin
  • Hall 10: Political repressions of the Kazakh intelligentsia in the 1930s–50s
  • Hall 11: Karaganda during the Great Patriotic War
  • Hall 12: The Soviet period in Karaganda from the 1950s–80s
  • Hall 13: Space exploration
  • Hall 14: Independent Kazakhstan
  • Hall 15: The First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan
  • Hall 16: “Faces of the Ancestors” hall with computer-animated reconstructions of ancient Kazakh residents, spanning from the 15th century BCE to the 15th century CE.

Each hall is dedicated to a particular theme, presenting items that range from early life on Earth, archaeological discoveries, and paleontological specimens from the 18th–15th centuries BCE, to flora and fauna unique to Kazakhstan, including rare plant and animal species. Visitors can explore traditional Kazakh society, ethnographic studies, decorative and applied arts, and the development of Karaganda’s industrial heritage.

Several historical halls delve into the political repression of Kazakhstan’s intelligentsia in the mid-20th century, wartime life during the Great Patriotic War, and various eras from the 1920s through the 1980s.

One of the museum’s most distinctive features is the “Faces of the Ancestors” hall, introduced to the public in 2002. Conceptualized by scholars from Karaganda State University, this unique exhibit uses technology to reconstruct the faces of 36 individuals who once inhabited the lands of present-day Kazakhstan. Based on studies conducted in the laboratory of Moscow’s M.M. Gerasimov Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, these facial reconstructions bring the ancestors’ visages to life on screen, accompanied by concise overviews of the historical epochs they represent. The exhibit operates in Kazakh, Russian, and English, making it accessible to a broad audience and providing an immersive look at Kazakhstan’s ancient heritage.

ADDRESS: Yerubaeva Street, 38

HOURS OF OPERATION: Open daily from 09:00 to 18:00, ticket office closes at 17:00

PHONE: +7 (7212) 565889

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: Karaganda Regional Museum Website

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