Volume 9. The Oryol regional museum of local lore

Offices.
In this building settled down
The Oryol provincial museum
in 1897-1917


Military technology parade
on the area before Museum
building. 1939


Museum building (Trading numbers)
in occupation 1941-1943.
From a collection of trophy pictures


Input in museum of local lore.
Sketch of the front
correspondent A. Etkina

The Orlovsky Provincial Museum (from 1932 – of Regional Studies) was opened to visitors in the 7 (19) December 1897 in the building of government offices.

By the time of the opening the collection included more than 2,5 thousand items: paintings, drawings, sculptures, porcelains, crystals, items interiors, rare books, documents and photographs, collections of numismatics and faleristics.

After 1918 the museum's collection was divided, then united. In 1932, the museum's exhibits were collected under one roof in the building of shopping malls (architectural monument of the middle of the XIX), where they are located now.

Museum funds increased significantly due to the artistic and historical values received from liquidating manors, churches and monasteries.

In the halls of the museum there were paintings by Dutch, Flemish painters; the collection of paintings by Italian artists of the XVI-XVII centuries, the collection of paintings by French artists of XVIII-XIX centuries, the collection of works by Russian artists, the porcelain of the Imperial Porcelain Factory of the reign of Catherine II.

Hitler's Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 22, 1941 In late August 1941 the main values of museum (more than 3000 subjects) were evacuated from the town Orel to the town Yelets, then to the city Uralsk (Kazakhstan). Some of the exhibits remained in Yelets and were plundered by invaders.

In occupied Orel in the museum there were nearly one half of the stock collections. In February 1942, the museum opened to visitors.

In the archives of the museum there were the receipts of the recipients about the impressments of tables, chairs, seating arrangement for the city council, the commandant's office, the German Security Police from the museum collections...

In August 5, 1943 Orel was released from Nazi occupation. In January 1944 to Orel museum exhibits returned. From 3,000 items from the museum which had been evacuated, less than half returned.

The box with the "tools and fragments of the Late Neolithic, owned Orlovsky local museum in Kiev, was found in the train, sent from Berlin by the Soviet military administration in Germany. In the cars there were museum treasures exported from the Soviet Union's and found in postwar Germany. In 1948, the archaeological materials were returned to Orel.

In the list of lost items of the museum the most precious artifacts are the golden brooch of the V century, the silver cross set with pearls and precious stones of 1659, the silver filigree salary icons, the porcelain Delft, the Venetian crystal, hand-written scrolls of the XVII century ...

Kind of an exposition hall. The beginning of XX century		Kind of an exposition hall. The beginning of XX century		Kind of an exposition hall. The beginning of XX century
Museum building (Trading numbers) after a direct hit aerial bombs. 1943		Panorama of the destroyed the historical centre Orjol. 1944		Panorama of the destroyed the historical centre Orjol. 1944