The Smolensk State Museum-Preserve was found in 1888, and now it's one of the largest many profiled museum units in Russia. It consists of 12 Smolensk exposition departments in Smolensk and 4 regional branch officers. The museum funds run above 600 thousands exhibits including more than 400 thousands things of the main fund. The most unique things are those collected by the founders of the museum, such as: M.K. Tenisheva, S.P. Pisarev, V.I. Grachyov, I.F. Barshevskiy, G.L. Gravve, and Y.Y. Alekseyev.

    The most special pages of the many centuries of the Russian history connected with the Smolensk Region are reflected in its expositions. It's the ancient history - the first mention of Smolensk in chronicles as "city great and large in people" refers to the year of 863. It's the heroism and the military valor of thelong suffering defender of the Western borders of Russia. It's the ancient traditions and the skill of flax growing. It's the motherland of the composerand the ancestor of the Russian classical music M. I. Glinka, of the outstanding sculpture S.T. Konyonkov, of the traveler and explorer M.N. Przhevalskiy, of the poet A.T. Tvardovskiy. It's Talashkino - the famous art center of Russia at the edge of the 19th - 20th centuries connected with the studying and the revival of the traditions of the Russian applied arts.

    The Smolensk City museums are the next: the museum "the Smolensk Flax", the Museum of Sculpture of S.T. Konyonkov, the History Museum,the museum "the Smolensk Region in the years of the Great Patriotic War, 1941 - 1945", the museum " In the World of a Fairy Tale", the museum "the City Smithy", the museum of Nature and Ecology, the flat museum "A.T. Tvardovskiy in Smolensk, 1943 - 1965", the Historical and Architectural Complex "Teremok".

    The branches of the Museum situated in the Smolensk Region: the Estate Museum M.I. Glinka, the House Museum N.M. Przhevalskiy, the museum of the Partisans' Glory, the House and Estate of A.T. Tvardovskiy, the House Museum of M.A. Yegorov.

    In 2013 the Smolensk State Museum-Preserve will celebrateits 125th anniversary. But in spite of such a solid age it confirms itself in a new quality, searches for the new approaches to the matter, takes an active part in interregional and international projects

    The Museum-Preserve occupies 36 buildings, and 32 of them are the monuments of architecture. Among them there are such unique and aesthetically satisfying buildings as a couple of the Historical and Architectural Complex "Teremok" in Flyonovo (not far from Talashkino): the Church of the Holy Spirit (1902 - 1903) decorated with the mosaic by N. K. Roerich's design, and so-called "Teremok", looking like a house from a fairy tale small chamber-tower built by the project of C. V. Malutin in the style of the Russian Revival Architecture.

    One of the war history museums occupies the polyhedral Gromovaya (Thunder) Tower of the Smolensk Fortress Wall (1596 - 1602). Some buildings have attractiveness in the aspects of art and history. Among them there is a building of the museum "the Russian Antique" (1903 - 1905) built for M. K. Tenisheva's art collection, the former building of Tsar Alexander the II Technical High School (1878) occupied by the new exposition of the Picture Gallery, a one-stored building with a mezzanine floor of the late 19th century given to the Museum of Sculpture ofS. T. Konyonkov in 1973