Description of the attraction
The Museum of History and Local Lore is a popular center of the cultural and artistic life of the entire city of Kirovsk. The museum conducts not only excursion and research work, but also organizes all kinds of conferences, thematic, art and anniversary exhibitions, holds meetings with interesting and famous people and much more.
The opening of the museum took place on May 1, 1935 as a memorial and dedicated to the life and work of S. M. Kirov, who made a significant contribution to the development of the Khibiny region. In 1993, the Kirov Museum of History and Local Lore changed its status, and now it bears the name of the Museum of History and Local Lore with a memorial to S. M. Kirov and the exhibition hall.
The museum has several funds, which are represented by the main fund, scientific auxiliary, archival, library and temporary storage fund. At the moment, the museum has three exhibition halls.
The first hall is dedicated to the history of Khibiny research work carried out during the 1920s-1930s. This collection contains personal belongings of the famous academician Fersman Alexander Evgenievich, member of the apatite-nepheline commission Ivan Kadatsky, geologist Grigory Pronchenko and Alexander Labuntsov, represented by diaries, documents, as well as Pronchenko's geological hammer. This exposition presents an authentic item - some part of the service, which was used by the Kondrikov family.
The second hall acquaints visitors with the history of the apatite industry in the Khibiny. Everyone understands that modern progressive machines used in the factories and mines of JSC "Apatit" will not be able to compete with the primitive tools and tools that existed before, which were used to extract whole tons of ore. Here are sledgehammers, carbide lamps, hand drills, a trolley. Particularly striking is the inherent unusualness of the collection of minerals, which was presented to Petr Nikolaevich Vladimirov by the famous Apatit trust for a global project concerning the construction of the Kukisvumchorr mine. A unique document is carefully kept in the Kirov Museum, which explains why many workers received orders for this kind of grandiose business, and the most important designer - only a collection of stones.
The third room contains a description of everyday life and working days during the Great Patriotic War. A considerable amount of documentary evidence about the phosphorus plant, which produced small Molotov cocktails for the needs of the front. It is in the local history museum that items from the workshop are presented, which was equipped on the horizon 392 meters from the Kirovsky mine and produced blanks for the manufacture of bayonets, mines and grenades for the Red Army. There is a lot of documentary evidence telling about the help of the residents of the city of Kirovsk to the commanders and soldiers, as well as about the sending of tobacco and warm clothes to the front-line territories.
On the second floor of the Museum of History and Local Lore, there is a large exposition telling about the unique features of the Khibiny nature. Only here are a lot of stuffed partridges, owls, the rarest migratory birds, as well as two unusually beautiful wolverines. In the storage room of the artwork there are paintings that were donated to the Kirov Museum by visiting or local artists who so majestically glorify the beauty of the entire northern region, the peculiar features of the Khibiny valleys, mountains, lakes and rivers.
The permanent exhibition of the museum presents authentic exhibits that accurately and in detail reflect the history of the study and research of the Khibiny, which has a close relationship with academician A. E. Fersman: the construction of Kirovsk or Khibinogorsk, as well as the creation of a global apatite industry located on the Kola Peninsula.
The most popular exhibit of the museum was the house of geologists, which hosted historically important meetings that decided the fate of the entire Khibiny region.
