The Museum was founded on the 30th of November in 1963 as a museum on public principles. It is one of the oldest city establishments in sphere of culture with a long-term operational experience in the field of study of local lore. The founder of a Museum was the Veteran of the Great Patriotic War and Labour, the Honourable citizen of Surgut city, Deserved art worker in Russia Pokazanyev Flegont Yakovlevich. Municipal establishment of culture "Surgut Museum of Local Lore" is a leading museum in Khanty-Mansy Autonomous District-Yugra. All museum activity is focused on preservation, studying and popularization of the historic and cultural heritage and expansion of the museum communications behind frameworks of city and district. The Surgut Museum of Local Lore represents uniqueness of regional culture, history and nature, results of interaction of various cultures on region territory, a place and a role of Surgut and the Surgut territory near by the Ob River in history of Russia. Mission of a Museum is realized through various forms of interaction with the visitor. All educational activity of the Surgut Museum of Local Lore is built on a line of presentation of the collections according to a paradigm of subject knowledge, with reference to interests and needs of visitors. The main purpose of the Surgut Museum of Local Lore is not an abstract education and familiarizing with achievements of a science and culture, but the development of a heritage for self-realization of the person in modern society. The visitor for a museum is an interlocutor and the partner, and exhibits - means of a dialogue.

    The Musum possesses more than 20000 exhibits. They are archeological collections of Surgut Region, Eastern

    Khanty ethnographic collections, collections of manuscripts and books printed in 15th - the beginning of the 20th

    centuries, coins, banknotes, Tobolsk carved ivoty, painting, rare books, etc.