Museum’s Collection

At present the collection of the Tyumen regional museum of local lore, history and economy numbers over 230 thousand of items. The archeological collection contains over 70 thousand items related to the major periods of Tyumen history beginning with the mesolithic epoch. Among the exhibits there are samples of ancient Ugor castling from the Ust-Balyk burial ground, items made out of birch-bark dated to early iron age. There are also unique palaeontological exhibits: skeletons of ancient animals found in the vicinities of Tyumen. Among them there are remnants of a mammoth, a bison, and a fleecy rhinoceros.

The ethnographical collection is considered one of the largest in Siberia and numbers over 6000 exhibits. It contains clothing, cult items, decorations, and household appliances of the peoples inhabiting Siberia. Very interesting is a collection of the Russian ethnic clothes and handicraft items, among them are the carpets manufactured in the Kamenka village, famous for their varied ornaments. Varied handicrafts from different parts of the Tyumen region are also presented in the museum. Among the exhibits there are spinning-wheels, wooden articles, shaft-bows and bells, smoke-shields and drain-pipes, and samples of the Tyumen house carving.

A collection of icons represents great artistic advantages of the Ural and Siberian icon painting. The icons of highly worshipped saints, Simeon Verkhoturski, Ioann Tobolski, and Innokenti Irkutski, are kept in the museum.

A fund of rare books numbers about 18 thousand folios, including over 2 thousand hand-written and early printed books dated XIV-XVIII centuries. Among them there are ‘Triod postnaya’, the first book published in Slavic in 1491, in Krakov; ‘Gaol Bible’ published by the Russian publisher Ivan Fedorov in 1581; and ‘Encyclopaedia or explanatory dictionary of science, arts and crafts’ by D.Didrot and J. D’Alamber (Paris, 1751-1780). The fund also contains works of the outstanding Siberian researcher, architect, and cartographer Semen Remezov, as well as books and magazines published in the first Siberian printing-house owned by the merchants Korniljevs.

The museum exposition contains large collections of fine arts, coins, ancient arms, precious metals, household and decoration items of different ages.

A huge collection of minerals and rocks numbers over 1800 samples representing a wide range of natural treasures of Siberia. The ‘pearls in the crown’ are unique samples of natural origin, i.e. ‘ Chalcedony Rose’, ‘Amethyst jeode’, and bauxite ‘Red Cap’.