Description of the attraction
The city of Kostomuksha traces its history to the appearance of an iron ore deposit in the 1970s. The plant was built by 1984. According to the statistics of the Expert magazine, the Karelsky Okatysh plant is included in the list of 200 largest enterprises in Russia, 30 leading companies in the North-West and 20 best ferrous metallurgy plants in terms of the number of products sold. It became the main city-forming enterprise of the city, the population of which is now 29 738 people. Therefore, it is not surprising that the museum of the city of Kostomuksha was opened as a museum of a mining and processing plant. It began its activity in 1981, having the status of a public museum, and in 1991 it became a municipal one. The collection is based on materials dedicated to the discovery of an iron ore deposit, the construction of a plant, and the construction of a city. A significant part is occupied by the collections of the writers of Karelia. The museum is located in the cultural and museum complex of the city of Kostomuksha. The building was renovated in 2006.
The main direction is local history, historical. The museum houses the following collections: "Discovery of the Kostomuksha iron ore deposit", "Construction of a city and a combine", "Collection of the writer Rugoev YV", "Materials about war veterans and partisans".
More than 3, 5 thousand people visit the museum a year. The museum employs 3 people, one of them is a researcher. The museum covers an area of 200 sq. m. The archive contains 250 exhibits. There are 3291 exhibits in the main fund.
The museum organizes annual exhibitions, at least 7-8 per year, partners of the museum are also organizers of annual exhibitions: Customs, Center for extracurricular activities, Kostomuksha Nature Reserve, Lennrot Institute (Finland). Artists of Karelia, photographers, students of the children's art school named after Leo Lankinen.
Game programs are also held: "Visiting the Karelian Village", "Memorial Day V. Ya. Rugoev "," Day of Memory and Mourning for Victory Day. " In addition, excursions are held in Kostomuksha and the mining and processing plant, as well as in the village of Voknavolok, which is famous for its rune singers. It was founded in the 17th century and is located on the shores of Lake Upper Kuito, not far from the town of Kostomuksha (50 kilometers away). It is considered one of the most national villages in Karelia. It was here that many of the Kalevala runes were written by the Finnish writer Elias Lennrot, as well as old houses, which are now cultural monuments, have been preserved.
A tour of the mining and processing enterprise allows you to see the scale of this largest enterprise in the North-West of Russia. Now the enterprise is in third place in Russia in terms of production of iron ore pellets; it produces one fifth of these products in the Russian Federation. Basically, the consumer of the products of the plant is the metallurgical plant "Severstal", in the city of Cherepovets in the Vologda region. But the Kostomuksha combine exports its products to the USA, Great Britain, China, and the Netherlands. The plant is now successfully increasing its capacity.
You will be able to visit the observation deck in the quarry, get acquainted with all the technological processes at the plant. At the end of the excursion, you can take as a souvenir a small Karelian iron ore pellet, which contains about 64-66% iron and thanks to which the city of Kostomuksha was formed on this Karelian land.
