Description of the attraction
The Mineralogical Museum is located on the second floor of the educational building of the Institute of Mining of Bishkek at 164 Chui Avenue. Its entire collection occupies only one spacious hall. There is no charge for visiting the museum, but there are no guides here either. You can inspect the exposition of the museum on your own or ask for clarification from students or teachers of the institute.
The Geological Museum was founded in 1954 for the own needs of the Mining Institute. Samples of minerals that can be found on the territory of Kyrgyzstan are collected in glass showcases. Samples with gold content and volcanic stone interspersed with calcite, which is similar in shape to the sun, are of great interest to visitors. The pride of the museum is a selection of stalactites from local caves and rare semi-precious stones.
The collection of the museum is replenished with interesting stones that are brought from geological expeditions by students and employees of the institute. Through the efforts of caring people, several accrete crystals of gypsum 60 cm high and part of a fossilized tree trunk that grew in prehistoric times appeared in the museum. Interestingly, until the second half of the 20th century, scientists believed that deposits of fossilized trees exist only in America. The find of local scientists refuted this theory. In 1999, Yakut geologists donated a detail of the skeleton of a mammoth to the Mineralogical Museum of Bishkek. And the next year, Moscow paleontologists, who discovered the remains of dinosaurs on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, presented the museum with several bones that belonged to prehistoric dinosaurs of an unidentified species.
