The National Museum
The National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan is devoted to the history and culture of Tatar people. It was founded as Kazan city scientific-industrial museum in 1894 and opened in April, 5, 1895.
The 40-thousand pieces collection of a famous archaeologist, historian, collector Andre
y Fedorovitch Likhachev (1832-1890) and the displays of scientific-industrial exhibition of 1890 were taken as the basis of the museum.
The eminent scientists of Kazan University were at the background of the museum collection’s forming, the Kazan collectors and maecenases actively enlarged the museum’s funds.
Nowadays the museum’s funds, numbering more than 800 thousand of units, embrace the local history subject area systematically and exhaustively, they are an important value for study and demonstrating the republic’s nature, the history of peoples from Povolzhie , Ural, Russia and the world.
Among the most valuable collections – the Bulgar collection of A.F. Likhachev, the collection of Ananyin burial grounds’ excavations, Egyptian and antique collections, collections of golden coins, ancient scrolls of the XVII century, manuscripts of the XV-XX centuries, memorial things of representatives of Tatar literature, ornamental-applied art of Kazan Tatars, the memorial collection of G.R. Derzhavin.
The museum is situated in the building of the former Gostiny Dvor, that is a monument of architecture and history of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tatarstan. The importance of the building is in the unique constructions in the system of arched ceilings.
