Museum of Nature of the Urals (Yekaterinburg)

The Museum of Nature of the Urals is a department of the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and one of the oldest natural-history museums in the region. It holds a collection of flora and fauna from Sverdlovsk Oblast and neighbouring areas.

History

The museum traces its history to the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers, founded in Yekaterinburg on 29 December 1870 (10 January 1871, New Style) — the date from which the whole Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore counts its history, with the Museum of Nature remaining its oldest department. In 1960 the museum received collections that had previously been kept in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Zelyonaya Roshcha park. On 28 December 2001, after renovation, the reopened Museum of Nature opened on Gorky Street 4, next to an old water tower, where it still operates today.

What to see

The exhibition includes minerals, plant herbariums, models, collections of insects, shells and corals, as well as paleontological finds. Among the unique exhibits are a mammoth skeleton found by peasants in 1897 near the village of Nizhnyaya Purtovaya in Kamyshlov Uyezd, and the remains of a giant deer, Megaloceros, discovered in 1886.

The exhibition is divided into thematic sections: the region's geographical position, the history of its formation, natural complexes, protected areas, and the relationship between the city and the environment, including environmental problems.

Getting there and practical details

The museum is open Wednesday to Friday from 11:00 to 19:00, and Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00; it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. The first Wednesday of the month is a sanitary day. The museum takes part in the annual international Night of Museums event and is of interest to schoolchildren, students and anyone interested in the nature of the Urals.