Sumy Regional Studies Museum

Sumy Regional Studies Museum (Сумський обласний краєзнавчий музей; Sumskyi oblasnyi kraieznavchyi muzei). Founded in 1920 in Sumy as the Sumy Art and History Museum under the directorship of Nykanor Onatsky. In 1939 the museum was divided into the Sumy Regional Studies Museum and the Sumy Art Museum which became independent institutions. In 1972 the Sumy Regional Studies Museum was moved to the imposing premises of the former zemstvo administration building. In 2010 the museum's three exhibit sections—natural science (geology, flora, fauna), history (including archeology, ethnography, and numismatics), and 20th-century and contemporary history—contained over 45,000 artifacts from the Sumy region, including a library of over 15,000 volumes. The Okhtyrka and Putyvl regional studies museums, the Anton Chekhov Building and Memorial Museum in Sumy, and the Peter Tchaikovsky Memorial Museum in the town of Nyzy are branches of the museum.

[This article was updated in 2011.]