History of the museum

Great Ustyug - one of the most ancient cities of the Russian North, which saved original architectural shape, is the heritage of the huge art importance. City is called city-museum.

The first museum of Great Ustyug - repository - was opened on October, 3rd, 1910 in building of Vvedensky's temple of Michael-Arkhangelsk monastery. Founded at Great Ustyug’s Orthodox Stefano-Prokopiy brotherhood in 1909 church repository was built "for collecting and storage of ancient church and historical monuments of Great Ustyug, with the purpose of their best savings and for convenience to get acquainted with them, and it is equal and for advantage of church-historical science".

During the existence of repository some remarkable subjects of an antiquity from Michael-Arkhangelsk, John-Predtechy, Trinity-Gleden monasteries, Kirill-Mefodiy, Save-and –of all-cities churches were transferred. Many valuable exhibits were given by the members of committee, or priests of Great Ustyug and priests of other districts.

In 1918 on the basis of repository the Museum of Severodvinsk culture was opened. For a short period of time the most valuable fund which has defined the structure of the museum was created.

The brightest and tragedy pages in history of the museum - its uncompromising struggle for preservation of the architectural lay-out of Great Ustyug. From the first days of the museum took care of protection of ancient monuments. Regional specialists opposed adaptations of the most valuable monuments under establishments and the organizations, asked about their full transfer to conducting of the museum.

At the beginning of XXI century The State Historical and Architectural and Art Memorial Estate of Great Ustyug consisted of 26 monuments of architecture. Special value is represented with cathedrals: Assumption cathedral (XVII-XIX centuries), Prokopevsky cathedral (XVII century), Church of Rise (XVII century), Trinity cathedral of Trinity-Gleden monastery (XVII century - the beginning of XVIII century) and the cathedral of Archangel of Michael-Arhangelsk monastery (XVII century), Church of Simeona Stolpnik (XVIII century) and Dmitry Solunskiy XVII-XVIII centuries.In interiors of the temples carved golden multicircled iconostases of XVII century can be seen.

In the museum the following expositions work: " History of Great Ustyug XII - the beginnings of XX centuries, " the Nature of the land "," the Folk art of Great Ustyug"," Northern blacken "," Carved and painted birch bark"," Russian art of XIX-XX centuries "," New Year and Christmas holidays ".

Funds of memorial estate consist of about 100 thousand units of storage. These are unique collections of icons and sewing, wooden sculptures, national arts and crafts (northern blacken, carved and painted birch bark, enamels on skani, a frost on a tin), archeology, coins, rare books and documents.

The basic directions of activity of a museum - restoration of monuments of architecture, storage and scientific processing of share collections, research, exhibitional, scientifically-educational.