Sami open-air exhibition "In the land of the flying Stone"

The Sami open–air exposition "In the Land of the Flying Stone" was created on the territory of the Lapland Nature Reserve as a tribute to the close cooperation of scientists with the indigenous people of the North - the Sami.

Most of the scientific expeditions that rushed to Lapland since the early 1920s, having a railway line as their base, did not penetrate further than 60-70 km from it and almost did not communicate with the Sami. Otherwise, Herman Mikhailovich Kreps conducted the work. The Sami helped Herman Mikhailovich Kreps in 1923 to make an ethnographic expedition to Middle Lapland: they knew the territory perfectly well, had deer on the farm and moved freely through deep snow.

On the difficult path to the creation of the reserve, Herman Mikhailovich Kreps had good-hearted relations with many Sami hunters. Thanks to this, he knew how many and what kind of animal the Sami were getting and came to understand that the organization of a nature reserve should be the first step in protecting nature.

The roots of the Sami go back to ancient times, so the Sami exposition introduces both the history of the Kola Peninsula before its industrial development, and the history of the formation of the Murmansk Region, and subsequently the Lapland Reserve.

With its name "In the Land of the Flying Stone", the exposition refers to the book of the same name by the famous scientist-ethnographer Vladimir Vladimirovich Charnolusky. He released it shortly before his death and devoted himself entirely to the ethnography of the Kola Sami.

The exhibition features a Sami vezha, a kuvaksa, a barn, hunting pits and a small museum where you can get acquainted with the culture and life of the Sami.

You can visit the exposition either independently or accompanied by a guide. We recommend visiting the museum of Oleg Izmailovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky and Herman Mikhailovich Kreps beforehand.