The resort town of Pyatigorsk is part of the agglomeration of the Caucasian Mineral Waters. This is one of the most popular holiday destinations in the south of Russia. There is no sea there, only mountains. Pyatigorsk can be reached by different types of public transport - by bus, plane and train. In the latter case, it is best to go to the train station in Mineralnye Vody, where the trains have a long stop, and get to Pyatigorsk by local electric train or bus. What to see in Pyatigorsk? Below is a small overview of interesting objects.
The main museums of Pyatigorsk and their features
There are enough museums in Pyatigorsk for a city with a population of 150 thousand people.
If you look at the map of the city, it is noticeable that they are all located between the railway station and Gagarin Boulevard.
From the station to the east of the city, that is, to the Lermontov grotto and Mount Mashuk, Kirova street leads. In front of Anzhievsky Square, you need to turn off from it onto Malygina Street, and then onto ul. Dunaevsky. The building of the Pyatigorsk electric networks is located on it. Inside it is the museum "First Steps of the Electric Power Industry". Its exposition was created in 1983 and talks about the development of energy in the city, from the first devices at hydroelectric power stations and electric meters of the beginning of the 20th century.
Further along Kirov Avenue, there are monuments to two great poets - Pushkin and Lermontov. They serve as a convenient guide for the search for two more museums - local history and police. The first is open on all days except Monday, from 9:00 to 18:00. The second schedule for museums is not typical, it is closed on weekends, but is open on weekdays from 9:00 to 18:00. The police museum is one of the youngest in Pyatigorsk; it was opened in 2001 for a professional holiday.
House 18 on Kirov Avenue has an insect museum. It has been operating since 1995 and is open daily from 10 to 19. Tickets cost from 150 to 250 rubles. The collection of insects totals over 1000 copies. They can be both local and brought, for example, from Southeast Asia. In addition, it presents snakes and amphibians.
Lermontov Museum-Reserve
Pyatigorsk is one of those cities in Russia that are associated with the name of Lermontov, so tourists should definitely visit the poet's museum-reserve. It was founded long ago, in 1912, and is located on Lermontov Street, 4. It was in this house that the poet spent the last two months of his life. The interiors reflect the life of 1837. The museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but it works on weekends. A ticket costs 250 rubles. The word "reserve" in the official name did not appear by chance. This is a museum complex, it consists of, in fact, Lermontov’s house and 7 more objects. Each of them is one of the departments of the museum. For example, the literary department is located in the former house of Verzilin, where Lermontov was challenged to a duel. In the former Umanov’s house, the Lermontov in Fine Arts department is located. The museum of the composer Alyabyev, rare for Russia, is also one of the departments of the museum-reserve.
The oldest museum in the city is local history
Pyatigorsk Museum of Local Lore is interesting because it was founded 115 years ago, a rare example of a pre-revolutionary museum in southern Russia. It is located in the resort part of the city, in a historical building, which at the beginning of the 20th century was a hotel and the first sanatorium. The address of the Pyatigorsk Museum of Local Lore: the intersection of Kirov and the Bernardazzi Brothers, 2. Its visit costs 100 rubles, which is very cheap for museums. The exposition occupies 4 floors. How to get to the local history museum of Pyatigorsk? You can walk a couple of kilometers from the station, as well as take bus number 1 or trams number 1, 3-6, 8. You need to get off at the Tsvetnik stop.
The museum has more than 130 thousand storage units. They relate to the following topics:
- Archeology.
- Numismatics.
- Mineralogy.
- Paleontology.
- Zoology.
- Botany.
- Steel arms.
- Stone monuments from the region’s first museum of antiquities (1850).
- Rare books.
- Ceramics.
- The history of the XIX-XX centuries. Especially the Caucasian war, the development of resort business in pre-revolutionary Russia, the civil war and the Great Patriotic War.
In addition, the Pyatigorsk Museum of Local Lore has a scientific library with magazines and books on the subject of Caucasian studies.
A unique branch of this museum is the exposition "Pyatigorsk antiquities". It was officially opened in March 2016.
