Famous museums: the Mining Museum of the northern capital and the collection of the geological museum in Yekaterinburg

Human civilization is unthinkable without the preservation of cultural heritage. One of the main roles in this matter is played by museums. The mountain museum shows the mining history of the country, the artistic history is masterpieces of art, etc. All kinds and types of museums created on the planet can not be counted. And we will talk about those meetings that carefully store very special Russian museums - the Mining Museum of the St. Petersburg State Institute, renamed in 2011 to the university, and the geological museum in the Yekaterinburg Mining University.

Treasures of Russian minerals

In Russia there are not too many museums related to the history of mining, there are about thirty of them. In addition to the mentioned exhibitions in higher educational institutions of this profile, there are still specialized museums: the Mountain Museum-Reserve in Nizhny Tagil and the Zmeinogorsk Museum of the History of Mining Production Development in the Altai. In the Nizhny Novgorod region there is a unique underground museum of mining, geology and speleology. It is located in a mine depth of 70 meters.

Underground treasures of the northern capital

The Mining Museum of the St. Petersburg State University was founded in 1773 by the decree of Empress Catherine II. Four years later he was visited by a guest of the Russian Imperial Court, Swedish King Gustav the Third. He arrived with gifts: two hundred and two samples of Scandinavian stones, ores and salts adorned the collection of our museum. Since then, it has been continuously updated with exhibits.

The exposition is located in three halls, the most majestic of which is the column hall. The mountain museum of St. Petersburg has the rarest treasures of rocks. Here you can see samples of Trans-Baikal jade, Japanese rock crystal, fossilized wood with amethyst. The storehouse of natural exhibits has a large number of natural crystals, there are beryl from nine dozen deposits of the world, a crystal of euclase 7 cm long, an excellent malachite collection.

On land and above ground

Lovers of stars in the Petersburg Museum will like a curious collection of meteorites (more than a thousand samples), and admirers of antiquity will be delighted by paleontological artifacts. There are in the collection of the museum and about two hundred samples of cold weapons, as well as twenty miniatures of the Faberge jewelry factory.

The museum, located on the 22nd line of Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg, offers a free visit and four excursions devoted to the history of mining equipment, introducing the basics of mineralogy and telling about the evolution of life on our planet.

Unique collection of the Urals

The geological museum of the State Mining University in Yekaterinburg is well known not only at home, but also abroad. His "highlight" is that there are stored unique samples collected only in the underground storehouses of the Urals. Almost a third of the minerals known on the planet were discovered in the bowels of this region. Ural ores and stones the museum represents not only in their natural appearance, but also demonstrates skilful products from them.

Ural geological (or, as it is often called, a mountain museum), Ekaterinburg rightfully considers its pearl. Among the most unique exhibits is a quartz-hairy crystal with inclusions of red and golden mineral of rutile. This crystal block of 70 cm high reminds us of the legend of the hair of Venus frozen in a mountain stream. The so-called ruby rose and two malachite vases, filigree made at the Ekaterinburg lapidary factory, are struck by magnificence.

In addition to minerals, the museum exhibits palaeontological samples found in the Urals region telling the visitor about the local ancient fauna and flora. The cultural institution is located in Yekaterinburg at the address: 39 Kuibysheva Street. The ticket for the exposition costs 120 rubles, for schoolchildren and pensioners it is twice cheaper.

With the times

Like many modern museums, the mountain museum of the Ural capital offers visitors the latest projects. For example, during a master class on the production of paints from minerals, its participants get a delightful opportunity to cook their egg tempera with their own hands and test their creation in painting. Since 2011, the Ural exposition has been participating in the now fashionable action "Night of Museums".