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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