The Museum of the Priamursky Imperial Department of the Russian Geographical Society was opened in 1894. The first collections were made up of numerous donations from active members of the Priamursky Department and city residents.
A special credit for the creation of the museum is reserved for Governor-General Nikolai Ivanovich Grodekov. He built up a vast ethnographic collection, purchased books, paintings, and ancient coins.
In 1910, when the traveler and explorer Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenyev was elected director, a new period in the museum’s history began, marking its golden age. Annual expeditions — ethnographic, zoological and archaeological — became the source of replenishment of museum collections. Arsenyev united the scientific efforts made in Khabarovsk and the Amur region.
Currently, besides organizing
exhibitions, the museum staff is engaged in research in ethnography, history,
museum and cultural studies. The archaeologists of the museum continue their
work in various parts of Khabarovsk Krai.
