Up on Resurrection Hill, this museum's moderately interesting collection of old artefacts, clothing and recreations of old homes is well-presented, with placards in English. Climb the observation tower and try to spot Tomsk's seven historic churches from the top. For R50 you can rent historical costumes for silly photo-ops. The stone just outside the museum entrance marks the founding of the city.
Tomsk Historical Museum
Tomsk
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
0.91 MILES
The gloomy basement of this former NKVD (proto-KGB) building is now a museum dedicated to the unspeakable horrors that took place here. Look out for the…
University & Siberian Botanical Gardens
1.38 MILES
The classically colonnaded main buildings of the university lie in resplendently leafy grounds, giving Tomsk the sobriquet ‘Oxford of Siberia’. Most of…
0.26 MILES
Central pl Lenina isn’t really a square so much as a jumbled collection of beautifully restored historic buildings interspersed with banal Soviet concrete…
0.85 MILES
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0.03 MILES
This dimple-sized hill was the location of Tomsk’s original fortress, and the replica of its central wooden spasskaya bashnya (savior's tower), which…
0.38 MILES
On the riverbank, this cheeky Chekhov statue was sculpted in bronze for the 400th anniversary of the city’s founding. Rubbing its well-polished nose is…
2.44 MILES
A Tomsk landmark, this moving mother-and-son monument is at the very southern end of pr Lenina. The beautiful birch-tree park (Лагерный сад) here is a…
0.48 MILES
Well worth popping into for its wide range of permanent and temporary exhibits. The highlight is the collection of 19th- and early 20th-century Russian…
Nearby Tomsk attractions
0.03 MILES
This dimple-sized hill was the location of Tomsk’s original fortress, and the replica of its central wooden spasskaya bashnya (savior's tower), which…
0.05 MILES
Up on Resurrection Hill, this pretty Catholic church dates to 1883. There are often a couple of nuns around the compound.
0.16 MILES
Topped with a golden angel and right beside a Lenin statue, is the Iverskaya Chapel whose celebrated icon is dubbed ‘Tomsk’s Spiritual Gateway’.
0.16 MILES
This frustrated Lenin statue, now relegated to a traffic circle, points at the ugly concrete of the Tomsk Drama Theatre, apparently demanding ‘build more…
0.2 MILES
This is where the doomed communist mastermind Sergei Kirov lodged in 1905.
0.26 MILES
Central pl Lenina isn’t really a square so much as a jumbled collection of beautifully restored historic buildings interspersed with banal Soviet concrete…
0.28 MILES
The former trading arches sit just west of the Soviet-built Tomsk Drama Theatre.