Cherkasy Oblast Regional Studies Museum

Cherkasy Oblast Regional Studies Museum (Черкаський обласний краєзнавчий музей; Cherkaskyi oblasnyi kraieznavchyi muzei). A regional studies museum founded in May 1918 in Cherkasy on the initiative of the local Prosvita society. By mid 1920s the museum’s collection included over 15,000 items and its library over 13,000 books. A large part of this collection was looted or destroyed during the Second World War. In 1985 the museum was relocated to its current building, one of the largest regional studies museum building in Ukraine. Today the museum has over 106,000 exhibit items, including old manuscripts, icons, the Cossack period artefacts and weapons, ethnographic and archeological collections, and a sizable zoological collection. The museum has five branches, including the Taras Shevchenko literary memorial museum in Cherkasy.

[This article was written in 2011.]