The Literature Museum was opened in 1989. It is located in an 18th-century building that used to house the Central Public School and later the Secondary School for Boys.
The permanent exhibition presents a unique collection of 19th-century furniture which was used in the country estates of the Penza Governorate and exemplifies the development of decorative and applied art in 19th-century Russia. The museum’s collection includes Meissen and Russian porcelain, a copy of the Portland Vase by Josiah Wedgwood, and a memorial dedicated to Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.
The literary exhibition
features a unique collection of lifetime editions of writers who worked in the
18th–20th centuries, including Ivan Krylov, Denis
Fonvizin, Gavriil Derzhavin, Pyotr Vyazemsky, Alexander Grin, and Vladimir
Mayakovsky.
