The Bryansk State Museum of local lore (BSMLL) was opened in September, 1921. By the early 1940's the museum exposition was very popular among the city people.

    During 2 years occupation of Bryansk by the German fascists troops all the exhibits and the library were lost. After the city's liberation (September 17, 1943) it took 5 years to form museum collection and build the new exposition.

    Since 1980 the Bryansk museum has been leading the museum union that comprises 13 regional branch museums (10 museums of local lore, 2 military-history museums, 1 memorial museums of the Russian literature classics: A.K.Tolstoy's museum in the village of Krasny Rog). Museum stands as follows: 8 departments; 3-storeyed building (2699 square meters exposition area), which was built in 1982 according to the individual project. The current museum exposition was built in the late 80's of the past century with the help of the best designers of Leningrad. It lights up the history of the region from ancient times up to our days.

    The museum fund of collector's items comprises about 210 thousand pieces with a lot of unique subjects among them.

    A well-known in Russia and abroad archaeologist F.M.Zavernyaev (1919-1994) had been working at the museum for 40 years. Among the archaeological sites discovered and described by F.M.Zavemyaev there are famous now in the world the lower Paleolithic location Khotyliovo and Pochep settlement of the 1 - st 3-d centuries A.D. The latter gave the name to a new archaeological culture