Lipetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore

In 1918, the Museum of the Society of Peter the Great was nationalized, and the Lipetsk Folk Museum was organized on its basis. Within the first year, its collection was replenished with valuable objects from confiscated estates and houses. The museum’s founder and first director was Mikhail Pavlovich Trunov (1867–1942), a doctor, local historian, and community worker. The museum’s collection began to be formed thanks to donations by Lipetsk citizens. Approximately 200 people donated the first exhibits to the museum.

The museum houses artifacts that reflect the history of the Lipetsk land from ancient times to the present day. The collection features over 300,000 items, including archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, coins, paintings, drawings, sculptures, household objects, photos, and rare books. Some of the most valuable exhibits are paintings by renowned artists such as Ivan Aivazovsky, Ivan Shishkin, Aleksandr Makovsky, and Igor Grabar. The museum also features a unique collection of merchant portraits by local artists of the first half of the 19^thcentury, as well as a collection of Romanov clay toys. In addition, the museum houses memorabilia associated with Georgy Plekhanov, Tikhon Khrennikov, Ivan Mashkov, and Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, as well as items related to the history of the region’s ironworks.