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Abkhaz State Museum (Sukhum, Abkhazia) - exhibitions, opening hours, address, phone numbers, official website.

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The Abkhaz State Museum is the largest in the country and, according to many visitors, the most well-groomed and rich. Significant financial investments and the dedication of researchers made it possible to create a very decent institution by local standards. Despite historical vicissitudes, which many times raised the question of closure, the museum always managed to stay afloat. Today this is perhaps the best place to get acquainted with the history and modernity of Abkhazia.

What to see

The Abkhaz State Museum is located in a spacious building, the right wing facing Leon Avenue, and the facade facing a small square next to the Philharmonic. By the way, the square is also part of the museum; on its territory there is the grave of the painter Alexander Shervashidze, a dolmen from the village of Eshera and several large stone sculptures. Visiting the park is free, so you can see the famous Escher megalith without entering the building.

The pride of the museum is an antique marble wall and a bust of local craftsmen found at the bottom of Sukhumi Bay, an aigret with a horseman and a dog from the Bronze Age, a metal shield from Assyria in the form of a griffin (6th century BC), a Greek shield and helmet from the same period .

The funds include over 100 thousand rare objects made of metal, clay, linen, and numerous written monuments. A number of exhibits have not only national but also global significance. These are artifacts from one of the oldest Yashtukh sites in the world, Mesolithic harpoons from the Cold Grotto, a rod from the radius of a cave bear.

Also presented here is a reconstructed complex of dwellings of a traditional Caucasian family. The nature department contains paleontological artifacts and samples of minerals common in Abkhazia.

Practical information

Address: Sukhum, st. Gulia, 61.

Opening hours: Monday-Friday: 10:00-15:00, Saturday-Sunday: days off. Entrance: 100 RUB. Prices on the page are for April 2019.

Abkhaz State Museum.
The Abkhaz State Museum was created in the 60s of the 19th century. Over the long history of the museum, it has managed to collect a huge amount of museum valuables. More than 100 thousand items are stored in its storerooms - these are unique items made of ceramics, metal, fabric, written documents, etc.

Today, the museum’s funds contain monuments of history and culture not only of the Abkhaz people, but other peoples of the Caucasus, ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Sasanian Iran, documents of the Great October Revolution, materials telling about the participation of the Abkhaz people in the Great Patriotic War.

The museum has a large number of interesting and unique exhibits and is one of the oldest scientific institutions in the republic. It has departments: nature, archeology, history of ancient and middle ages, ethnography, history of the modern period, funds.

In addition to the actual exhibits of Abkhazian culture, the museum has quite a lot of cultural and historical values of other regions: ancient Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Iran. The most valuable items are items from the Iron Age of the late 3rd millennium BC, an ancient Greek marble wall raised from the bottom of Sukhumi Bay, a cult aigrette with a horseman and a dog from the late Bronze Age, an Assyrian bronze shield from the 6th century. BC.

In the early 60s of the 19th century, lovers of the history and nature of Abkhazia had the idea to collect exhibits of cultural and historical value from the population and organize a museum in Sukhum. Before the start of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. the collected exhibits were taken outside the region and the museum ceased to exist. As a result of this, the most valuable numismatic, ethnographic, archaeological exhibits and materials of the natural history of Abkhazia were lost.

On the initiative of a group of agronomists, foresters and teachers, the creation of a museum in Sukhum was started again in 1913. A project was developed to create a “Society” to collect materials for studying the region.

In the first half of 1915, a general meeting of members of the “Society of Lovers and Researchers of Nature and the Population of the Sukhumi District” was held in Sukhumi. The board included A. Sinitsin (chairman), B. Kiselev, V. Kozlov, V. Semashko, B. Zakharov, D. Grandolevsky, V. Kristalevsky and others.

Since the creation of the Society, the organization of a local history museum began. During the first years it was located in a small, damp building belonging to the District Administration. In 1916, at the insistence of members of the Society, the Sukhumi city administration allocated a subsidy of 500 rubles to the museum, which made it possible to rent premises suitable for the museum and open it to the public. The official opening of the museum took place on May 17, 1917.

At the end of 1920, during the period of dominance of the Georgian Mensheviks in Abkhazia, the “Society of Lovers and Researchers of Nature and the Population of the Sukhumi District” ceased to exist, and along with it the museum closed. All collected exhibits were taken by the Mensheviks to Georgian museums.

After the establishment of Soviet power in Abkhazia, local history work resumed under new conditions. In August 1922, the Abkhaz Scientific Society (ABNO) was formed in Sukhum, which elected a council and presidium on May 13, 1923. A year later, the museum moved to new premises, where it is currently located.

In 1928, the museum was transferred to the system of the People's Commissariat of Education of the SSR of Abkhazia and received the status of a State Museum. Since 1946, the museum has been under the jurisdiction of the Administration for Cultural and Educational Institutions under the Council of People's Commissars of the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and since 1953 - under the system of the Ministry of Culture of the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

In 1933, Joseph Adzinba was appointed director of the museum, who, despite the fact that he was not a historian, archaeologist or ethnographer by profession, paid a lot of attention to collecting museum valuables. Under him, a historical and revolutionary department was opened in the museum.

In 1937-1938, when reprisals swept across the country, documents related to the national liberation movement in Abkhazia and its ideological leaders E. Eshba, N. Lakoba, N. Akirtava, G. Atarbekov and others disappeared from the museum collection.

From the first days of the Great Patriotic War, museum staff began collecting documents, photographs, letters that clearly revealed the heroic struggle of soldiers from Abkhazia against the Nazi invaders.

Since the 1960s, the museum’s contacts with the Abkhaz Scientific Research Institute, other scientific institutions and leading museums in Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Minsk, Tbilisi and other cities have become increasingly closer.

In mid-1977, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, in the Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR in Leningrad, employees of the Abkhaz State Museum (Yu. Argun and E. Adjinjal) organized an exhibition “Abkhazians (life and art)”, where more than 300 exhibits from collections of the Abkhaz State Museum.

At the end of 1978, by the decision of the board of the USSR Ministry of Culture, the Abkhaz State Museum was assigned the first category, and it was awarded a Diploma by the USSR Ministry of Culture and the Central Committee of the Trade Union of Cultural Workers.

As the museum grew, its structure also changed. Until 1980, the museum had two branches (the Art Gallery from Sukhum and the New Athos Panteleimon Cathedral in N. Athos), five exhibition departments: nature, archeology, history of the 19th century, history of the Soviet period, ethnography, as well as departments of funds and scientific propaganda . Since 1980, new departments and sectors have appeared at the museum on ancient sections of the history of Abkhazia.

In 1987, in connection with the seventieth anniversary of the Great October Revolution, by decision of the government, 2 more branches of the Abkhaz State Museum were organized in Abkhazia - the Yasochka memorial museum in the Gulrypshsky district and an art gallery in the New Athos monastery complex.

Now the museum occupies a large building, which faces the Philharmonic square with its facade, and the right flank - Leon Street. The square is part of the museum. Here is the grave of the artist Alexander Shervashidze, a dolmen from the village of Eshera and several stone exhibits. Entrance to the park is free, which allows you to see the famous dolmen without entering the museum.

In the building itself, the museum occupies several floors. Somewhere in the first rooms there is a very decent exhibition of geology and archeology - imprints of ancient plants, all sorts of bones and a very valuable set of bones of the whale Cytotherium. Such whales once swam over the territory of Georgia, but there are bones only in the Sukhumi museum and in the Kutaisi museum (there is one, but a large one).

Next there are a lot of objects from the era of the Colchis kingdom - mainly the famous bronze axes. In Georgia, such axes are in every museum, and if Georgia does not fit into your plans, but you are still carried away to Abkhazia, then at least take a look at them here. These axes are actually a symbol of Colchis culture.

Archeology continues with objects of antiquity - Greek amphoras and plates. A whole hall was dedicated to this era, but this hall is strange. Its design was entrusted to a designer from Siberia, who came up with the idea of blocking all the display cases with glass walls. Further, the museum has a rather large ethnography section. There are costumes, carpets, all sorts of things collected there, and even a model of an Abkhaz house was made.

Of course, the topic of the war with Georgia could not be ignored here. A large room on the second floor has been allocated for it. There are weapons, photographs and newspapers from those years stored here. The exhibition has some anti-Russian overtones - for Abkhazians it is quite obvious that the State Council army fought for Yeltsin’s interests. This fairly well-known fact in Russia exists at the level of theories, but in Abkhazia it is formulated straightforwardly: the exhibition tells that the invasion of Abkhazia was planned directly at the headquarters of the Transcaucasian Military District. Tourists from Russia do not stay in this room for long and do not read the texts, so they usually do not notice the attack.

The museum is located in Sukhum on Leon Avenue, just south of the Botanical Garden and one block west of the parliament building. In front of the museum building on the street there is an interesting monument of the Early Bronze Age of Abkhazia, brought from the village of Eshera - a dolmen (megalithic structure of the 3rd millennium BC, the ancestral tomb of the ancestors of the Abkhazians).

Opening hours: from 10:00 to 15:00.
Weekends: Sat, Sun.

Museum Features

The Abkhaz State Museum, founded in the 60s of the 19th century, has two branches in the Gulripsha and Gudauta regions of Abkhazia. The museum's collection was initially created by lovers of nature and antiquity; the local population donated various valuable numismatic, archaeological and ethnographic materials, which became exhibits. It is worth noting that the first collection taken outside Abkhazia during the Russian-Turkish War was lost. 1913 was marked by the creation of the Sukhumi Society by an initiative group that decided to study the history of the Sukhumi region and collect interesting and ancient materials. In 1915, the first local history museum was formed in the Society, which officially opened only 2 years later - in May 1917. It is worth noting that one of the most important areas in the work of the museum staff was the collection and search not only of lost ones, but also the discovery and processing of various new exhibits; the collected materials were supposed to replenish the museum’s collection and attract more visitors.

Historical exhibits located in the museum building

Despite the difficulties in finding materials, with each year of the museum’s existence the collection grew and grew, and today more than 100,000 interesting and unique exhibits can be seen from the museum’s storage facilities to curious visitors. Guests can see materials from ancient Abkhazia, the Caucasian peoples and other ancient states; there are historical exhibits from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Byzantium. It is worth noting that many of the exhibits on display are priceless. The special pride of the museum is a unique tombstone called the Esher dolmen, it is exhibited in the center of the museum courtyard, next to a complex of residential buildings that were built to imitate the traditional living conditions of ordinary Abkhaz families. The halls of the museum can amaze with their diversity and splendor; there is an ancient Greek marble wall dating back to the ancient period, an ancient bust, a Greek shield and helmet that have survived to this day, the date of creation of which is called the 5th - 4th centuries BC, as well as an Assyrian a bronze shield and many other valuable exhibits. The nature department, in accordance with its theme, is equipped with a variety of exhibits of numerous paleontological finds, including fossilized skeletons of fish with an age of 50 million years, as well as samples of ancient flora and fauna. By visiting the museum, guests will be able to delve deeper into the history of Sukhum, get acquainted with its nature and all its geographical and geological features.

Coordinates: Abkhaz State Museum is located in Sukhum. Created in the 60s of the 19th century

Review

Over the long history of the museum, it has managed to collect a huge amount of museum valuables. More than 100 thousand items are stored in its storerooms - these are unique items made of ceramics, metal, fabric, written documents, etc.

Today, the museum's funds contain monuments of history and culture not only of the Abkhaz people, but other peoples of the Caucasus, ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Sasanian Iran, documents of the Great October Revolution, materials telling about the participation of the Abkhaz people in the Great Patriotic War.

Many of the exhibits on display have not only republican, but also global significance. These include: one of the oldest in the former Soviet Union, the famous Acheulean Yashtukh site; Mesolithic inventory of the Cold Grotto (collection of bone harpoons), “Chief’s Rod” from the forearm of a cave bear. Of outstanding importance are also the materials of the dolmen metal culture of the end of the 3rd millennium BC, represented in Transcaucasia only in Abkhazia; treasures of axes of the Middle Bronze Age, as well as original highly artistic forms and decorations, weapons and tools of the Late Bronze Age; ornamented axes on bronze handles, not found anywhere else in the Caucasus; ritual daggers, belt buckles and more.

The pride of the museum is the famous ancient Greek marble wall and a bust of local work from ancient times, raised from the bottom of Sukhumi Bay; iconic aigrette with horseman and dog from the Late Bronze Age; Assyrian bronze shield in the shape of a griffin (6th century BC); Greek helmet and shield - centuries. BC e.

The natural history monuments of Abkhazia are no less interesting and scientifically significant. The fossilized skeletons of fish from the genus mackerel on display in the museum date back 50 million years. The collection of fossil cave bears, which lived 8-9 thousand years ago, is of great scientific importance. These materials were found in caves in the village. Pskhu.

Story

On the initiative of a group of agronomists, foresters and teachers, the creation of a museum in Sukhum was started again in the year. A project was developed to create a “Society” to collect materials for studying the region.

One of the main directions in the museum’s activities is the collection, processing and storage of museum valuables, that is, the constant replenishment of its funds. Until 1989, scientific expeditions to cities and regions made it possible to regularly replenish the funds with unique exhibits of ethnography and archeology. Scientific expeditions were carried out not only in the republic, but also abroad. In the year, a group of museum employees traveled to Karachaevo-Cherkessk, where they not only collected materials, but also gave lectures and reports on the history and culture of the Abkhazians. The same expeditions were carried out in Adygea, Sochi and Adler regions.

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An excerpt characterizing the Abkhaz State Museum

I was very upset, but, trying my best not to show this to Athenais, I asked as calmly as possible:
– What kind of “fingerprint” is this?
- Oh, everyone, when they die, comes back for him. When your soul ends its “languishing” in another earthly body, at the moment when it says goodbye to it, it flies to its real Home, and, as it were, “announces” its return... And then, it leaves this “ seal". But after this, she must again return back to dense earth in order to say goodbye forever to who she was... and a year later, having said “the last goodbye”, leave from there... And then, this free soul comes here to merge with the part of himself left behind and find peace, awaiting a new journey to the “old world”...
I didn’t understand then what Athenais was talking about, it just sounded very beautiful...
And only now, after many, many years (having long ago absorbed with my “hungry” soul the knowledge of my amazing husband, Nikolai), looking through my funny past today for this book, I remembered Athenais with a smile, and, of course, I realized that , what she called the “imprint,” was simply an energy surge that happens to each of us at the moment of our death, and reaches exactly the level to which the deceased person was able to reach with his development. And what Athenais called then “farewell” to “who she was” was nothing more than the final separation of all existing “bodies” of the essence from her dead physical body, so that she would now have the opportunity to finally leave, and there , on her “floor”, to merge with her missing piece, the level of development of which she, for one reason or another, did not manage to “reach” while living on earth. And this departure occurred exactly after a year.
But I understand all this now, and then it was still very far away, and I had to be content with my still very childish understanding of everything that was happening to me, and my sometimes erroneous and sometimes correct guesses...
– Do entities on other “floors” also have the same “imprints”? – the inquisitive Stella asked interestedly.
“Yes, of course they do, but they are different,” Athenais answered calmly. – And not on all “floors” they are as pleasant as here... Especially on one...
- Oh, I know! This is probably the “bottom” one! Oh, you definitely have to go and see it! This is so interesting! – Stella chirped contentedly again.
It was simply amazing how quickly and easily she forgot everything that had frightened or surprised her just a minute ago, and again cheerfully strived to learn something new and unknown to her.
- Farewell, young maidens... It's time for me to leave. May your happiness be eternal...” Athenais said in a solemn voice.
And again she smoothly waved her “winged” hand, as if showing us the way, and the already familiar, shining golden path immediately ran in front of us...
And the wondrous woman-bird again quietly floated in her airy fairy-tale boat, again ready to meet and guide new, “searching for themselves” travelers, patiently serving some kind of special vow, incomprehensible to us...
- Well? Where shall we go, “young maiden”?.. – I asked my little friend, smiling.
- Why did she call us that? – Stella asked thoughtfully. “Do you think that’s what they said where she once lived?”
– I don’t know... It was probably a very long time ago, but for some reason she remembers it.
- All! Let’s move on!.. – suddenly, as if waking up, the little girl exclaimed.
This time we did not follow the path so helpfully offered to us, but decided to move “our own way,” exploring the world on our own, which, as it turned out, we had quite a bit of.
We moved towards a transparent, golden-glowing, horizontal “tunnel”, of which there were a great many here, and along which entities were constantly moving smoothly back and forth.
– What is this, like an earthly train? – I asked, laughing at the funny comparison.
“No, it’s not that simple...” Stella answered. – I was in it, it’s like a “time train”, if you want to call it that...
– But there’s no time here, is there? – I was surprised.
– That’s right, but these are different habitats of entities... Those who died thousands of years ago, and those who came just now. My grandmother showed this to me. That's where I found Harold... Do you want to see?
Well, of course I wanted to! And it seemed that nothing in the world could stop me! These stunning “steps into the unknown” excited my already too vivid imagination and did not allow me to live in peace until I, almost falling from fatigue, but wildly pleased with what I saw, returned to my “forgotten” physical body and fell asleep, trying to rest for at least an hour to recharge your finally “dead” life “batteries”...
So, without stopping, we again calmly continued our little journey, now calmly “floating”, hanging in a soft, soul-lulling “tunnel” that penetrates every cell, enjoying with pleasure watching the marvelous flow of dazzlingly colorful colors created by someone through each other. (like Stellina) and very different “worlds” that either became denser or disappeared, leaving behind the fluttering tails of rainbows sparkling with wondrous colors...
Suddenly, all this most delicate beauty crumbled into sparkling pieces, and a shining world, washed with star dew, grandiose in its beauty, was revealed to us in all its splendor...
It took our breath away from surprise...
“Oh, what a beauty!.. My mother!” the little girl breathed.
I, too, lost my breath from aching delight and, instead of words, suddenly wanted to cry...
– Who lives here?.. – Stella pulled my hand. - Well, who do you think lives here?..
I had no idea who the happy inhabitants of such a world could be, but I suddenly really wanted to find out.
- Went! – I said decisively and pulled Stella along with me.
A marvelous landscape opened up to us... It was very similar to the earthly one and, at the same time, sharply different. It seemed that in front of us there was a real emerald green “earthly” field, overgrown with lush, very tall silky grass, but at the same time I understood that this was not earth, but something very similar to it, but too ideal... not real. And on this field, too beautiful, untouched by human feet, like red drops of blood, scattered throughout the valley, as far as the eye could see, unprecedented poppies were red... Their huge bright cups swayed heavily, unable to withstand the weight of the huge, playfully sitting on the flowers shimmering with a chaos of crazy colors, diamond butterflies... The strange purple sky blazed with a haze of golden clouds, from time to time illuminated by the bright rays of the blue sun... It was an amazingly beautiful, created by someone’s wild imagination and blinding with millions of unfamiliar shades, a fantastic world. .. And a man walked through this world... It was a tiny, fragile girl, from a distance in some ways very similar to Stella. We literally froze, afraid of accidentally scaring her off with something, but the girl, not paying any attention to us, calmly walked along the green field, almost completely hidden in the lush grass... and above her fluffy head a transparent purple fog, twinkling with stars, swirled. , creating a marvelous moving halo above her. Her long, shiny, violet hair “flashed” with gold, gently brushed by a light breeze, which, while playing, playfully kissed her tender, pale cheeks from time to time. The little one seemed very unusual, and absolutely calm...

The Abkhaz State Museum is a historical and local history museum in Sukhum that has existed for more than a hundred years. There are exhibits here that tell not only about the history of the Caucasus, but also about the history of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Byzantium, as well as the fate of Abkhazia in Modern Times. The museum is one of the most interesting attractions in Sukhum, and is definitely recommended for a visit.

The museum building has several floors. The museum complex also includes a square in which some stone monuments are located, for example, a dolmen from the village of Eshera, one of the most interesting exhibits of the museum. The museum includes several branches: the Yasochka Museum in the Gulrysh district (a region of Abkhazia several tens of kilometers from Sukhum), the New Athos Panteleimon Cathedral and gallery in New Athos, as well as the Art Gallery in Sukhum.

It is important for the museum to constantly replenish its repository with new materials and valuables, so its employees are constantly collecting and processing new information and monuments.

Exposition and exhibitions in the Abkhazian Museum

The museum houses more than one hundred thousand exhibits. Among them are not only household items, tools, ceramics and jewelry, but also documents and written monuments. Paleontological finds and mineral samples are also presented here. The museum has halls from different historical eras, as well as literary, ethnographic and natural science halls.

Ancient world history

Some exhibits are of world significance. It's not even that they illustrate the lives of various peoples around the world. Many of them are very rare, even unique. These are, for example, objects from the Yashtukhi site, one of the oldest sites in the world.

Other unusual exhibits from ancient history include a collection of bone harpoons from the Kodori Grotto (a cave in which traces of human existence were found about 30 thousand years ago), as well as the “Wand of the Chief,” made by an ancient man from a bear radius. In the halls dedicated to the Ancient World, other artifacts of the Mesolithic era are presented. Also on display here is an antique marble wall from Ancient Greece found at the bottom of Sukhumi Bay and many other exhibits.

In the museum you can see stone and metal dolmens that are more than five thousand years old. The Abkhaz State Museum is the only place in Transcaucasia where you can see dolmens in person and, moreover, in such variety.

Natural world

These halls display fossilized skeletons of ancient fish that swam over the territory of Abkhazia in the World Ocean millions of years ago. Some of the exhibits are up to 50 million years old. Also in the Abkhaz State Museum there is a large collection dedicated to the cave bear that lived in Abkhazia about 9 thousand years ago. In addition to all this, the halls display a variety of stuffed animals.

Ethnographic section

This part of the Abkhaz State Museum tells about the life and life of local peoples, about the national features of the Abkhazians and shows their household items, jewelry, dishes, tools made and used by them.

Stand “Old Views”

This stand presents New Athos and the surrounding territories of the time when the Russian Empire first became acquainted with the culture and history of Abkhazia, that is, the 19th century. Then the Russian authorities tried to attract attention and effort to the study of the monuments of Abkhazia.

Modern history

Since the Abkhaz State Museum began its existence at the beginning of the 20th century, documentation from the time of the Great October Revolution has been preserved here. Moreover, with the establishment of Soviet power on the territory of Abkhazia, the museum resumed its local history work, and a scientific society was formed. Based on this, one can understand that the museum’s collection actually contains many monuments of that era.

History of the Great Patriotic War

Naturally, such an event as the Great Patriotic War could not ignore the museum’s exposition. From the very beginning of the war, its workers began to collect and process materials telling about the course of the war and illustrating the region’s struggle with the invaders.

Square

The square at the Abkhaz State Museum is considered part of it. Here you can see the famous stone dolmen from the village of Eshera, as well as some other large monuments. The Abkhaz artist Alexander Shervashidze is also buried here. To get into the square itself, you do not need to purchase an entrance ticket to the museum, and you can explore it absolutely free.

History of the museum

During the popularization of Abkhazia and increased interest in it (1860s), some historians began to collect materials illustrating local culture, history and nature. However, before the Russian-Turkish War, all the collected monuments were taken out of Abkhazia and subsequently partially lost. In 1913, the idea to create a museum appeared again. The collection of materials continued for several years, and on May 17, 1917, the museum was officially opened. Since then, the museum has ceased its activities and moved several times, which is why it also lost some of its exhibits. However, since 1989, museum staff have constantly organized scientific expeditions to local areas and thus replenished the museum’s fund with unique finds.

Opening hours of the Abkhaz State Museum and prices in 2020

The Abkhaz State Museum is open on weekdays from 10:00 to 15:00, and the entrance ticket to the exhibition costs only 100 rubles. To take photographs and videos, you do not need to purchase additional tickets or permits; this opportunity is free at the museum.

How to get to the Abkhaz State Museum in Sukhum

The Abkhaz State Museum is located in the center of Sukhum, so it can be reached on foot along Leon Avenue from such attractions as the Botanical Garden, the embankment and the Park named after. Lenin. If you want to get to the museum by transport, take any minibus going to the Philharmonic stop. You can also get here by taxi using one of the local services.