The building of the Murmansk Regional Museum of Local Lore

The original design of the building of the Murmansk Regional Museum of Local Lore in the mid-1930s belonged to the hands of two Leningrad architects – Olya and Lipkin. According to their idea, the exterior of the building was to be executed in the best traditions of the then-dominant Stalinist classicism. Among other things, the architects planned to decorate the building with a monumental arch and sculptural compositions around the perimeter of the roof. However, the project was not destined to be realized – soon the Great Patriotic War began and priorities shifted.

At the end of the war, the museum was organized in the school building number 6 on Lenin Avenue. Its reconstruction was undertaken by a group of architects, including Mikhail Panteleimonovich Savkevich (who became the first chief architect of Murmansk) and Anatoly Isaakovich Pribulsky, who also distinguished themselves by participating in a number of major architectural projects in St. Petersburg. Later it was decided to give the museum a more monumental look – to add tall columns and a wide cornice. The same Architects, Savkevich and Pribulsky, were responsible for the reconstruction, and in 1957 a new building was built. And in 1965, the facade of the building acquired the look that we know now – with a memorial composition dedicated to the world's first Arctic icebreaker Ermak. The project of the composition was created by Murmansk architect Nikolai Petrovich Bystryakov with the participation of the mosaicist Nikolayev and the artist Dyachenko. 

After listening to P. V. Fedorov's podcast "Architectural walks in Murmansk", you will be able to learn more about the history of the construction of the Murmansk Regional Museum of Local Lore. 

Now the famous building with an anchor on Lenin Avenue is under reconstruction, the museum is located at the address: Pavlova Street, 1A.