Barentsburg: old Museum (culture house)

Culture house (old Museum)

These panoramas are historical more than anything else. They show the Pomor museum in Barentsburg as it was in 2014. Since then, it has been moved to a new building under the consulate; not all of the exhibitions shown here are still on display. The geological department, for example, does not exist anymore; this is a shame, because it was a good, well-sorted exhibition, which reflected the geological history of Spitsbergen well.

In case you have visited Barentsburg in the late 1990s or the early 2000s, you know that back then the Pomor Museum was yet in another building, close to where the post office is located now. That building does not exist anymore.

Entrance area of the culture house (east, including staircase up to the old Pomor Museum).

Entrance to the old Pomor Museum. We are about to enter the geological exhibition.

The geological exhibition in the old Pomor Museum in the Culture House. Next to a simple, old-school geological field camp, there are samples of rocks and fossils systematically sorted to reflect Spitsbergen’s geological evolution. Unfortunately, the geology section was abandoned when the museum moved to its new location. Maybe it comes back one day ..?

The biology section appeared indeed a bit old-school and stepmotherly. I remember some highlights from earlier days that I can’t see here anymore, including a stuffed muskoxen that looked like a wild pig and a polar bear heart conserved in alcohol (vodka?).

Here it is getting interesting again, and of course this is a field where the Russian scientists have home field advantage: the history of the Russian Pomors. Their history, especially the timing of their first arrival in Spitsbergen, is controversial.

More artefacts related to the Pomor history in Spitsbergen.

The same room as in the previous panorama, still the Pomors, just a different perspective.

Russian exporation of the Arctic, including explorers such as the geologist Wladimir Alexandrowitsch Rusanov. He had explored Novaya Zemlya thoroughly between 1907 and 1911 and then ventured on an expedition to Spitsbergen in 1912, where he laid the foundation to Russian claims on coal occurrences. Later during the same expedition, he and his ship Herkules disappeared at the north coast of Russia.

Russian respectively Sovjet exploration of the Arctic.

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