Aktobe Regional Museum

Housed inside a Tsarist-era building, this regional museum focuses on natural history, including the meteorite craters in the region, and the locally found remains of a hornless rhino – the largest land mammal to walk the earth, some 40 million years ago. There are displays on regional necropoli, nomadic gear in the ethnography section, the founding of Aktobe and the Stalinist repressions. One room honours Aktobe-born cosmonaut Viktor Patsaev, killed during the Soyuz 11 mission.