The State
Historical Museum, formerly known as
"Lenin Museum”, is located in the city center on Ala-Too Square. It
provides valuable exhibits relatin to the history of Kyrgyzstan and
the Kyrgyz including stones with rock drawings from Saimaluu-Tash; armor
and different things of people’s everyday life dating from the Bronze
Age; excavated nomadic adornments dating from 1st till the 5th centuries
A.D.; the collection of grave stones of the Turkic period; stones with
runic
inscriptions
from Talas; ceramic, glass and metal articles; numerous ancient coins.
Here you can see rich ethnographic collections of objects from the late
19th and early 20th centuries including felt, wool, leather and wood
made by Kyrgyz artisans, a big collection of Kyrgyz embroidery,
weavings, national dress, original female adornments and highly artistic
horse harness supplies.
Working hours 10:00–15:00
Working days: from Tuesday to Sunday, Day off: Monday
The Museum of Fine Arts
Dedicated to
Kyrgyz folk and applied art and Russian and Soviet art, the museum was
established in the 1930s as the State Picture Gallery and was located in
the former St. Nicholas Church in Oak Park. The church now houses the
Gallery of the Artists Union. The building was constructed in 1974 as
one of the projects in the grand scheme for improving the capital and
features a yurt and different traditional craft exhibition. The full
collection numbers some 17,500 works. There are
also several galleries
of paintings from the soviet period, replicas of
Egyptian, Greek and classical Western sculptures and a collection of
linocuts based on the Manas epic by a famous artist Theodore Hertzen.
The museum is located on Sovetskaya Street, just in front of the Opera
and Ballet Theater.
Working hours 9:00–16:00
Friday: 10:00-16.00
Working days: from Tuesday to Sunday, Day off: Monday
The Frunze Museum
The Frunze Museum is located on Frunze Street. It is dedicated to Mikhail Frunze, a military hero in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze was born in 1885. His father was a Moldovian doctor’s assistant. He spent a tempestuous time in Moscow, and after several arrests for revolutionary activity — as one of Lenin’s pupils, he eventually commanded the Red Guards which occupied the Kremlin in October 1917.
A major player in the civil
war he was responsible for directing the defeat of the White Russian
Army under Admiral Kolchak in Siberia and for routing another army
commanded by General Wtangel in the Caucasus
Mountains.
In September 1918 he was dispatched to Tashkent to head a «Turkic
Commission» along with another general, (General Kuibyshev), to prevent
a counter-revolution. He then led the Bolshevik forces which took Khiva
(meeting virtually no resistance) and Bukhara (after a four day fight)
in 1920. He died during
stomach surgery in 1925.
His home town was renamed Frunze in his honour. (The name was changed
to Bishkek in 1991.) There is a statue of him standing outside Moscow
and one of the leading Soviet Military academies was named after him.
The museum contains memorabilia of his life and times, and it is all well laid-out with interesting information boards that really do illuminate that turbulent period of Russian history.
The prize exhibit is the actual cottage in which Frunze was born in 1885, which was dismantled and has been reconstructed on the ground floor of the museum. This alone is worth the entrance money, because you can walk into the rooms, which have all been provided with period furnishings and artifacts.
Working hours 10:00–15:00
Friday: 10:00-16.00
Working days: from Tuesday to Sunday, Day off: Monday