About the Museum
The museum’s main mission is to study the historical and natural development of the region, ensure the preservation and protection of historical and cultural assets, and collect and safeguard monuments of material and spiritual culture. By providing high-quality, accessible cultural services, the museum contributes to shaping a modern cultural environment and increasing citizens' social optimism.
Since its opening, and to this day, the museum has been located in the city of Ridder, at 11 Nezavisimosti, on the right wing of the first floor of a residential building. Currently, the total area of the museum is 411 square meters, including: an exhibition area of 277 sq m.., office spaces of 74 sq.m., and a storage repository of 60 sq.m.
Today, the museum’s collection consists of 34,200 items, including 25,735 items in the main collection and 8,465 items in the scientific and auxiliary collection (archaeological, mineralogical, ethnographic, and paleontological collections, a photo archive, and an art collection).
The museum’s work is carried out in five main research areas: natural sciences, archaeology, ethnography, history, and the protection of historical and cultural heritage.
The Ridder Museum of History and Local Lore actively participates in regional, national, and international seminars, cultural heritage preservation campaigns, as well as the “Clean Kazakhstan” environmental initiative.
The Ridder Historical and Local Lore Museum was founded by Order No. 159 of the Ministry of Culture of the Kazakh SSR on May 13, 1960, on the basis of the local history corner of Secondary School No. 4. Tireless local historians and founders of the museum, Vladimir Vladimirovich Klink and Yuri Georgievich Khabarov, together with a small group of enthusiasts, put great effort, knowledge, creativity, and energy into nurturing this project and presenting it to the city. The first director was V. V. Klink; the staff included four employees, and the museum’s area was 74 square meters.
In 1961, for the first time, the Leninogorsk Historical and Local Lore Museum opened the doors of its halls, placing on a very limited area exhibitions on natural resources, the history and modern life of the city, sections on palaeontology, geology, flora and fauna, and a memorial corner dedicated to Semenov-Tyan-Shansky. Despite its young age, the Ridder museum could boast unique exhibits from the very first days. For example, even the regional museum at that time did not have a paleontological collection. It was actively expanded due to extensive urban construction. One paleontological find of scientific interest—a bone of a large unknown animal—was brought to the museum by construction workers on the eve of its opening. A group of excavators from Belousov’s Special Construction Department discovered it in a foundation pit under a residential building in district No. 27 at a depth of four meters. The bone had been preserved in the gravel of an ancient riverbed 400 meters from the Khariuzovka River, near the hospital complex in the city centre.
The opening of the historical and local lore museum was dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The founders of the museum fulfilled this challenging but noble task with the support of the city’s public, labour collectives, and numerous enterprises and institutions. Employees of the metallurgical plant donated to the museum antique clocks from the concession period, old maps of Ridder, and figurines from the 1930s. The lead plant donated a Banner awarded for victory in the socialist competition of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan in 1942, as well as the first Book of Honour. The geological exploration expedition contributed a map of the district’s rock formations and fossils. The forestry college donated herbaria; the forestry enterprise provided photographs and samples of tree species; the logging enterprise contributed tools used by lumberjacks. A team of telephone operators under Bogaoutdinov found an old telephone that once stood in the concession office—through it, the decree on the nationalisation of Ridder’s enterprises was transmitted on May 11, 1918.
Central museums, institutes, and archives also assisted in the creation of the museum. From Moscow, Leningrad, Barnaul, and Omsk, photographs and photocopies of documents were received, illustrating the stages of Ridder’s development as an industrial centre. Students of schools No. 8 and 12 donated taxidermied birds and animals. Many antique items—coins, books, household items, and religious artefacts—were donated by residents. As a result, by the time of the opening, the museum had created departments of palaeontology, geology, flora and fauna, the history of old Ridder, the present and future of Leninogorsk, and a separate section demonstrating the work of the polymetallic plant.
To familiarise the public with the museum’s collections, a series of articles by Vladimir Klink titled “Through the Halls of the Town's Museum” was published throughout 1961 in the newspaper Leninogorskaya Pravda. The paleontological section featured reconstruction drawings and fossils found at various times in the Ridder–Leninogorsk area: remains of ancient sea creatures—trilobites, bryozoans, belemnites, ammonites—found at the Leninogorsk mine and the Andreevsky quarry; bones of large animals—mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and extinct deer—found near the lead plant and the Khariuzovka River.
The museum’s geological section displayed a collection of valuable polymetallic ore samples with daylight illumination and a showcase featuring the Mendeleev periodic table. Of particular interest was a relief map of rock formations around Leninogorsk, composed by the geological expedition team under Sukhanov in 1930. A separate showcase told the story of the discovery of the Tishinskoye ore deposit. The exhibition concluded with a map of the region’s mineral resources.
The richness and diversity of the Ridder region’s flora and fauna were presented through physical maps, paintings and photographs by local artists and photographers—especially Alexander Golovkov and Yuri Khabarov—and a collection of taxidermied animals and herbarium samples collected by forestry college students.
One of the museum’s rooms was dedicated to the history of Ridder–Leninogorsk. Evidence that humans lived in the area at least as early as the 3rd millennium BC was provided by a discovery made by teacher N. G. Rozhnov. On May 2, 1955, during a school excursion, he found fragments of a bronze dagger, proving that ancient people lived here 5,000 years ago. Traces of bronze processing indirectly confirmed the legend of an ancient people known as "chud’." Notes of English merchant Richard Chancellor from 1558 mention stories of Russians who travelled beyond the Irtysh before Yermak: “Up the Ob live people who walk underground day and night with fire, coming out to a lake, above which stands a large city.” This ancient reference might have hinted at early Altai miners.
Findings by residents also indicated that at the foot of Lead Hill, in the 4th century BC, there was an ancient mine. A reproduction of a drawing by A. Petrov, a teacher at the Kolyvano-Voskresensk school and later a renowned academician, showed what Ridder settlement looked like during early industrial development in the early 19th century.
Many exhibits, documents, and photographs told about the harsh life of Ridder’s workers during the Tsarist period and the British concession. A special place was given to the culture of Old Believers—the earliest settlers. The museum displayed their traditional crafts and tools: woven belts, headdresses, distinctive footwear called “butyly,” spinning wheels, and more. Prominent places in the history department were dedicated to portraits and documents of scientists who led expeditions to Altai—Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, Ch. Valikhanov, Przhevalsky, Robrovsky, Kozlov, and Potanin. The section “Ridder – The Concession” presented copies of Tsarist documents granting lands of the Ridder settlement to British millionaire Urquhart, along with photographs and maps from that era.A year later, in 1962, the museum’s exhibitions already contained about 500 items. Public interest was enormous: in its first year, the museum welcomed 47,000 visitors. Many appreciative entries were left in the guestbook—not only by locals but also by guests from Alma-Ata, employees of the Neva magazine from Leningrad, and a former partisan from the Far East.A huge amount of collecting work was carried out, and the museum’s holdings grew. Limited exhibition space prevented full display of the collections. In 1962, given the overwhelming interest of residents and visitors, the Leninogorsk polymetallic plant allocated and converted another apartment into new museum halls. Expanded exhibitions across five halls opened on April 22, 1963. This work was completed in the shortest possible time thanks to the enthusiasm of museum employees—V. Klink, Y. Khabarov, V. Vasilevsky, V. Zelensky, A. Makarov—as well as veterans and workers of the city’s enterprises.More than 300 photographic documents, hundreds of exhibits, and numerous texts were processed and displayed. One remarkable innovation for the time was the installation of radio and film projection equipment in the halls. Visitors could now hear the voice of radio announcer Yuri Levitan while viewing the Great Patriotic War exhibition, and watch a film about Leninogorsk provided by the Republican Television Service.On June 1, 1968—seven years after the museum’s opening—its area had increased more than threefold, and the number of exhibits had grown hundreds of times. In this form, the museum became the foundation for the modern Ridder Historical and Local Lore Museum under the Department of Culture, Archives, and Documentation of the East Kazakhstan Region.As of January 2005, according to the Budget Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the museum's funding was transferred to the regional budget (previously financed from the local budget), and instructions were given for re-registration with the justice authorities (Letter No. 947 of January 8, 2005 from the Akim of East Kazakhstan Region).Many changes have taken place in the museum over the years. The long-standing issue of building repairs was resolved in 2010 under the “Road Map” program. More than 18 million tenge were allocated by the state for major repairs of the museum’s façade and interior, as well as for the purchase of museum equipment.
Many of the museum’s artifacts are unique and belong to archaeological, ethnographic, and paleontological collections. The extensive photo-documentary archive is presented both within the exhibition and through modern digital displays.
The museum halls, renewed after major renovations and re-expositions, welcomed their first visitors in the year of the 65th Anniversary of Victory. Extensive educational work is conducted among students of all educational institutions of the city. The museum actively cooperates with veteran organizations and public associations. Each year, the museum is visited by no fewer than 5,000 guests. Various forms of cultural and educational activities are used—lectures, guided tours, theatrical performances, celebrations, meetings, public campaigns, round tables, and more—of which at least 40 are held every month.
For the past five years, the museum has been actively developing and implementing a program of monthly museum sessions for children with disabilities titled “Museum Without Borders.”
The museum’s doors are open not only to residents but also to guests from near and far abroad, who admire the natural beauty, rich resources, and historical heritage of our region. Their impressions are reflected in the numerous appreciative entries left in the museum’s guestbook by visitors from all regions of Kazakhstan and from abroad.
The museum’s collections are an inexhaustible treasury. The past has been gathered piece by piece in the quiet of its exhibition halls and storage rooms.
The exhibition area of the museum is 277 square meters, and the storage facilities occupy 60 square meters.
