Updated 11.01.2023
Polotsk National Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve has prepared a selection of materials that will allow you to visit our museums online. Records of concerts, virtual exhibitions and excursions, educational projects and much more are waiting for you on the pages of our websites! The selection will be updated.
Virtual excursions in the museums:
Virtual Tour through the Museum of Belarusian Book-Printing and the Museum-Library of Simeon of Polotsk.
Explore museums with modern information technologies. Here we offer a virtual 360° tour around the Museum’s permanent exhibition, which you can take at any convenient time. Virtual panoramas show the Museum’s halls as they used to be in 2016, before the great changes to the 500th anniversary of the Belarusian book-printing in 2017. We invite you to visit the Museum in person to see the results of those changes.
Free audio guide "Walking through Polotsk Historical Centre"
The audio guide will take you through the squares and streets of ancient Polotsk and get you acquainted with the history of many monuments and memorial sites located in the historical centre. During the excursion, you will visit the Upper Castle, the Lower Castle with Ivan the Terrible’s rampart, Sophia Cathedral, the former Lutheran church, Svoboda Square’s ensemble, the buildings of Nizhne-Pokrovskaya Street, etc.
We also invite you to take a virtual tour of our museums using the izi.TRAVEL platform
Virtual acquaintance with real exhibitions and exhibits:
Collection's Department
Newly acquired museum objects don’t get on display immediately, they are subjected to inventory, scientific study, restoration or conservation... Therefore, on this website we introduce you to the most interesting recent acquisitions before they will be placed in the halls of our museums.
Collection's Department
Museum collection of Polotsk National Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve includes the largest cash deposit of Ancient Rus' — Koz'jankovskij treasure of Arabic Kufic dirhams of the 9th — 10th centuries.
- The hidden from eyes of a visitor
Permanent Exhibition "A Walk along Nizhne-Pokrovskaya Street"
The exhibition reflects the history and culture of Polotsk in the early 20th century. During this period Polotsk was the district center of Vitebsk province of the Russian Empire. On the one hand, it was involved in all-Russian trends, being the center of economic and cultural life of the region. On the other hand, as a city of the Belarusian province in the European Russia, it had its own peculiarities. The main complexes of the exhibition were conventional interiors of buildings and institutions of the early 20th century. You can find information about the main complexes in this section.
Museum of Local Studies
There are more than 2 000 items in the exposition of the museum. Each of them has its own story. Some of them were found during archaeological excavations, others were transferred from the owners. During the excursion a tour guide will tell about the most interesting items from the exposition. For individual visitors sometimes it is difficult to determine the value of exhibit. We offer a series of articles about the unique, most valuable and interesting items from the museum.
- The exhibition of icon painting and portrait painting of the 18th-20th centuries
Art Gallery
The collection of the Polotsk National Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve has more than 100 works of sacred art - icons, altarpieces, items of temple utensils, which came to the museum from Orthodox churches, from individuals and through scientific expeditions.
- Digital copy of the original manuscript of Simeon’s of Polotsk Lexicon, late 17th century
Museum-Library of Simeon of Polotsk
The Museum-Library exhibit a digitized copy of the original Lexicon by Simeon of Polotsk (late 17th century) from the library of Uppsala University in Sweden. Now it is available for virtual users. Research materials
- Historical and Cultural Values
Collection's Department
The museum fund is divided into more than 35 collections (paintings, graphics, sculpture, decorative and applied art, numismatics, archaeology, household items and ethnography, old prints, manuscripts and printed matter, documents, photo and phonographic materials, etc.). The largest collections are those of numismatics, archaeology, photographic materials and printed editions. You can find the most valuable museum items in this section.
On our Youtube channel and RuTube channel you will find materials about the historical and cultural heritage of Polotsk Land and museums of Polotsk.
Scientists, researchers, as well as everyone who is interested in the historical and cultural heritage of Polotsk land, will be especially interested in the Science and Publications section, which contains electronic versions of NPHCMR publications. In the Science and Publications section, you may find digital copies of the new collections of Materials of scientific and practical conferences based on the research work of the museum-reserve's employees.
The first text electronic edition of the Cultural institution of scientific research and education Polotsk National Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve has been published : МАТЭРЫЯЛЫ НАВУКОВА-ПРАКТЫЧНАЙ КАНФЕРЭНЦЫІ : (па выніках навукова-даследчай работы супрацоўнікаў Нацыянальнага Полацкага гісторыка-культурнага музея-запаведніка ў 2020 г.).
The collection contains articles by the participants of the conference, which reflected the issues of history and culture of Polotsk region, current problems of museum activities. The publication is addressed to museum specialists, historians and culturologists.