Mikun Historical Museum

The Museum of the town of Mikun, specialising in the history of railway line construction, opened on 10 February 1995 on the premises of the Secondary School No. 1, in a room formerly dedicated to the Glory of Battle and Labour. In September 1998 the Museum became a branch of the Ust-Vymsk Region Museum Association. Its main exhibition, ‘The Building of the Northern Railway’, opened on 13 June 1999 in a former shop with more than 100m 2 floor space.

In 1998 the Museum started actively to assemble items for its collection, which today comprises more than 400 objects as different as fragments of railway elements (bogies, rails, brake blocks etc.), remains of the administrative buildings, signalling equipment, railway control centers and railway block systems. The Museum also collects items from the personal archives of inhabitants of the town of Mikun, from former convicts, exiles, special settlers and their relatives. The Museum’s efforts are supported by the local Centre for Children’s Tourism, which helps collect exhibits and carries out an oral history project, interviewing former convicts and those exiled to the region, for example in the settlements Elyashor, Madmas, and others.

The Museum plans to expand its exhibition space and to create new exhibitions on the history of the Gulag in the Ust-Vymsk district.

It also conducts thematic excursions for children and teenagers from local schools.