The fire after being hit by one of the enemy missiles was the first stage in the destruction of the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore. Everything that survived, the Russian military took to the territories of the Donetsk region under their control.
The museum depository contained about 53 thousand exhibits of various subjects, including material, pictorial, written (printed and handwritten), numismatic, archaeological, photo-documentary, natural and others. Library stocks numbered about 17 thousand books. The museum itself consisted of 7 exhibition halls.
The Mariupol Museum of Local Lore was the first state museum in the Donetsk region and the largest in the Sea of Azov. Founded on February 6, 1920, it pleased visitors with the first exposition in the same year. In 1937 it received the status of a regional museum, and in 1950 it was transferred to the category of museums of local significance.
The museum kept many rarities and valuable finds of the Azov region. Among them are the letter of Catherine II to the Greek Christians, the Shroud of 1760, the Gospel of 1811. Photos and postcards that allow you to trace the history of Mariupol, starting from the 1870s.
The basis of the archaeological collection was made up of materials of unique memos — tools, jewelry, a collection of stone statues, and so on.
The current state of the museum, its barbaric devastation and destruction is yet another confirmation that the Russian authorities stop at nothing to wipe Ukrainian culture off the face of the earth.
