History of My Land

The materials of Andrey Andreyevich Savvin, a famous collector of folklore and ethnographer, have a special place in the collection of the Churapchinsky Museum.

The materials for the museum were collected in different ways: many antiques were donated to the museum by the local community, some objects of folk art were found by school search teams.

It is necessary to note the great contribution of Andrey Savvin, who established a systematic scientific approach to collecting work. In a very short time (between 1948 and 1951) he managed to carry out extensive educational activities and establish a rich and varied collection of works by old masters, which is not only the golden collection of the Churapchinsky museum, but also the source of pride of the state museum collection of the republic.

The silver collection of the museum is extensive and represents a particularly valuable part, including many characteristic traditional types of jewelry works. The collection includes women’s jewelry, which traditionally was an integral part of the national costume. The source of pride of the museum’s collection are the works of Bolobuochuya, a renowned Churapchinsky master, cabinetmaker Pyotr Popov — Bolobuochuya. Modern folk artisans of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), whose works are housed in the museum’s collections, are the keepers and followers of the traditions of jewelry making and blacksmith craftsmanship. Classic examples of bone-carving art are the works of Semyon Nikolayevich Pesterev. The items representing the Orthodox Christian religion, a hand-written petition by Prokopiy Nesterovich Sokolnikov, the first Yakut ABC book and many others attract the attention of the visitors.

The museum’s collection continues to be enriched with new exhibits, photographs and documents.

In 2005, the Museum and the Institute for Humanitarian Research and North Indigenous Peoples Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences published a monograph on the basis of Andrey Savvin’s work “Yakut food before the development of agriculture”, and an album-catalog of the collections was published in cooperation with the National Art Museum.