Museum of History of the Town of Pushkin

[helenazar]

This obscure museum is a real gem, but unfortunately goes unnoticed by most tourists. I highly recommend visiting it if you have the time! It is located on Leontevskaya Street, only a few blocks from Gostiny Dvor. This museum's set up is something like a historical society. There, you will see many unique original photos, paintings, watercolors and maps related to the town of Tsarskoe Selo, later Pushkin. A lot of this material cannot be seen anywhere else. If anyone expresses interest, I can post some of it here (I was able to photograph a lot of it).


A plaque at the entrance of the museum reads: “Tsarskoe Selo: Founded in 1710, officially established as a town in 1808. From 1918, known as Detskoe Selo [Children’s Village]. In 1937, at the 100th anniversary of the death of the great poet, it was renamed the Town of Pushkin”.



Although this museum is not the fanciest or most well known of Pushkin’s museums, it offers a lot for those who wish to learn more about the town’s history. The staff is extremely knowledgeable and helpful, and can provide answers to many questions about the town.

These ladies, both Pushkin natives, work as guides (as well as guards) at the museum to supplement their pensions. When you hear them speak, you can immediately feel how much they love their town and its history.

[ChristineM]

I could not agree more, Helen.   The City Museum is a gem and the staff are wonderful, so happy to help and delighted that 'foreigners' spend time there.   This museum is funded locally unlike its larger, better known neighbour - the Tsarskoe Selo Museums State Preserve which receives central funding, but also has to raise its own funds from 'gate money'.

I would exhort anyone visiting Pushkin, to make time to visit this Museum.   I have appealed to a variety of people to encourage visitors from the tour buses which park outside the Catherine Palace, to walk a few hundred yards and visit Gostiny Dvor - especially the market - and to allocate time to visiting the Pushkin Museum.   

They have the most amazing series of watercolours, painted by a nineteen year old as Pushkin was being captured by the Nazi invaders, as well as a procession of evacuees being marched beneath the Lycee arch en route to their new homes - a town of tents outside Gatchina.   The entire civilian population of Pushkin was evacuated here for the duration of the occupation.   He also painted an amazingly evocative watercolour of the graves surrounding the Alexander Palace, after the Nazi retreat.   

This series of amazing watercolours and the talent, as well as the bravery, of this young man, remain unknown to the millions who visit Pushkin annually.

[helenazar]

That was one thing I forgot to mention about the museum, thanks tsaria for bringing that up. This museum does exist mostly on visitor fees, so it would be wonderful if they got more visitors. I have to say that in a way this was probably my favorite museum in Pushkin, so I do hope that it gets to be better known among foreign visitors.

One of the ladies from the photo above, Antonina Konstantinovna, was so nice that she invited me to her house and made me blinis (they were delicious!). She even gave me a souvenir book about the town of Pushkin (in English) and a few other books in Russian that she had at home. I was just amazed at the hospitality and the welcome I got from these people who only met me twice (I came back to the museum after my initial visit and that's when I got my invitation). 

[dmitri]

The Russian people I found very warm and friendly, especially around St.Petersburg. They love their city and surrounds passionately. They have every right to as it is a world treasure and was nearly lost for all time during the second world war. It is an incredible tribute to their hard work and determination that so much that had been destoyed has risen anew like a phoenix from the ashes. It is truly remarkable and the sign of a great people. How much the poorer we would all be without their sheer determination, skill and hard works.