Municipal museums

Memorial complex to pilots of naval aviation (Safonovo village)

There are municipal museums in the towns of the Murmansk region. The oldest of them is Kirovsk museum of history and local lore with memorial of S.M. Kirov and exhibition hall.

At present the exposition of the museum tells about the beginning of the Khibiny investigation, discovery of apatite deposits, organisation of apatite industry, difficulties during the Second World War, building and development of the town of Khibinogorsk - Kirovsk. There are more 13 thousand displays there.

The museum conducts active exhibition works. Different meetings with interesting people are quite common for the museum. Workers of the museum conduct big methodological work with school museums, assists in distribution of local lore knowledge among the population.

Polyarny museum of history and local lore was opened on the 24th of July of 1999 in the day of celebration of 100 anniversary of the town. It is situated in one of the first stone houses, built in the middle of 30s years last century for seamen families of the northern naval flotilla. There is library and lecture hall in the museum. The main exposition is devoted to the history of the town of Alexandrovsk (Polyarny). One of the most interesting displays is a model of submarine "Dolphin", one of the first Russian submarines, based in Katherine harbour.

In the summer of 2000 the museum opened new department of naval technique in the open air. Museum workers conducts enlightening and research works, they develop jointly with UNESKO ecological program "Land, sea and people".

The youngest municipal museums are created on the base of territorial departments of the Murmansk regional museum of local lore in 2000, among them be named museums of Kandalaksha, Kovdor (Web-site: www.kovgok.ru/museum), Plyarny (www.museum-polar.narod.ru), Monchegorsk, museum of history and local lore of the Pechenga district in Nickel village, museum of colour stone in Monchegorsk.

In 2001 the status of municipal museum got museum of history of town and fleet in Severomorsk. Each of these museums is interesting and has its own displays. Their history is also very interesting, the museum in Kandalaksha has been recording its chronicles since 1971, it started as folk museum, which was created by E.F. Razin, I.F. Stepanov, S.G. Mishenko and the others.