Description of the attraction
The Sebezh Museum of Local Lore has covered the entire history of the Sebezh Region in its expositions. The very first materials concerning the nature and historical development of the area were collected and processed by one particularly proactive and hard-working group of teachers in 1926. It is known that by 1927 the collective was able to collect about 286 different exhibits, and in the summer of the same year the Sebezh Museum was fully included in the extensive museum network aimed at the line of reliable public education. At that time, the area of the "young" museum was only 58 square meters. m.
Before the Great Patriotic War, the museum fund had at least four thousand different exhibits, and the allocated space for the museum exposition was already 206 sq. M. During the war, in 1941-1945, the fascist troops completely plundered the museum building, which is why the existing museum exposition disappeared forever without a trace.
After the war passed, the collection that is presented in the museum today had to be reassembled and recycled. The greatest emphasis in the course of these works was placed on the archives of the fourth and fifth partisan Kalinin brigades operating in the territory of the Sebezh region at that time.
In 1979, the Museum of Local Lore of the Sebezh Region became part of the united museums of the Pskov Region. At the moment, the Sebezh Museum displays an extensive and rich collection of materials and valuable documents relating to the period of the Great Patriotic War. Now the Sebezh Museum is housed in sixteen exhibition halls, which are located in two buildings with a total area of 893 sq. m., which displays more than twelve thousand storage units. All presented museum exhibitions are arranged in chronological order: from antiquity to the present day. The museum is located in the building of a small prison castle, which was built in the second half of the 19th century; the museum has existed in this building since the late 1950s.
A significant part of the first floor of the museum building is occupied by an exposition of nature, which presents some of the features of the Sebezh region. The natural exposition begins with a large showcase with prehistoric fossils found in the Maksyutinsky crushed stone quarry, which was formed after the Great Patriotic War. As you know, the Sebezh region has always been famous for its mighty forests. In the first hall there are various specimens of wood species and a large herbarium of various kinds of plants, including medicinal ones. Birds and animals are displayed in a diorama-landscape view for the greatest clarity. All exhibits are presented in a typical habitat. Here are elk, bear, fox, capercaillie, wild duck, magpie and crow.
The museum also has a department dedicated to the history of the Sebezh region from the Neolithic to the early Middle Ages. This exposition is located in two halls on the ground floor. For many years, starting from the 1940s, archaeologists from the city of St. Petersburg have been doing important work in this area: F. D. Gurevich, A. M. Miklyaeva, S. A. Tarakanova. and many others. Archaeological expeditions have discovered Neolithic sites, 23 settlements, 10 settlements, as well as 1470 barrows. A separate stand is dedicated to the ancient man.
The exposition entitled "History of the region from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century" is presented in a small hall. Here you can see the old coat of arms of the city of Sebezh, a model of a wooden medieval fortress, various items of peasant utensils, photographs of the famous Castle Hill, on which the city of Sebezh arose, objects of urban life of the 18th and 19th centuries, and much more.
The museum is currently developing an exposition of art and objects of the 17-20 centuries, but still some examples are presented here: a French tapestry of the 17th century, an unusual music box, a collection of gramophones and samovars, as well as a collection of edged weapons of the 18-19th centuries. In addition, the museum has organized a Gallery of paintings by the artist Gromov Konstantin Mikhailovich, who for a long time was the director of the museum.
