Tomsk Regional Museum

Tomsk


Housed in the splendid Atashev Palace, this modest museum has a 2500-year-old bear amulet and an interesting exhibit on the Great Tea Trail. But it's the building, commissioned in 1842 by the gold-mining entrepreneur Ivan Atashev, that's the main attraction. It was once used as a church, hence the incongruous steeple tower and wonderful organ hall.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Tomsk attractions

1. Memorial Museum

0.07 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…

2. Prospekt Lenina 56

0.19 MILES

This lovely old house marks the start of a street that's home to a number of attractive wooden buildings.

3. Red Mosque

0.26 MILES

This modest mosque, dating from 1904, was used as a vodka factory by the atheist Soviets, but was reopened to worshippers in 1997.

4. Tomsk Art Museum

0.43 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…

5. University & Siberian Botanical Gardens

0.54 MILES

The classically colonnaded main buildings of the university lie in resplendently leafy grounds, giving Tomsk the sobriquet ‘Oxford of Siberia’. Most of…

6. Dragon House

0.65 MILES

Grand wooden mansions stand along ul Krasnoarmeyskaya including the late-19th-cenury Dragon House which is home to a clinic and a couple of dragons.

7. Chekhov Statue

0.68 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…

8. Peacock House

0.69 MILES

The fan-gabled Peacock House (early 20th century) is a classic landmark.