The local history museum of Rostov-on-Don is on 79, Bolshaya Sadovaya St. The museum building is at the back of the yard beyond the arch with columns. The museum has very curious expositions on the history of Rostov land but the most interesting of them is the exposition «The Treasures of Don Steppes» where one can see the artifacts from ancient burial mounds.
Rostov regional local history museum was founded in 1910. The exhibits assembled by the Rostov History, Antiquity and Nature Society were on display there. In 1934, after the creation of Azovo-Chernomorsky Krai, the museum collections were moved to Stavropol. But in 1937 the administrative division was again changed. Rostov region appeared and with it a new local history museum.
Now at the museum one can see the vast collections of artifacts discovered during the archaeological excavations in the Don steppes. There one can see weapons, earthenware, and household items from the gorodishches (sites of ancient settlements) of peoples that inhabited these lands in ancient times.
The most interesting exhibition is «The Treasures of Don Steppes» where one can see the golden articles, which belonged to the tsars and nobility of Hellenic, Scythian and Sarmatian periods of history. Certainly of historical value is a golden funeral torc (neck decoration) of 1 century A.D. Together with the other golden decorations it was discovered in the burial mound of a Sarmatian tsaritsa (queen).
One can also see there kalafs (headwear with veiling) richly decorated with gold, scabbards, quivars with plates of gold foil, and various gold decorations for clothes. Totally, the exposition contains about 2000 exhibits dating back to the period between 4 and 8 centuries A.D.
A huge museum exposition is devoted to the Rostov region in the time of Peter the Great who founded there the towns of Azov and Taganrog, the period of the fight with Turkey for the outlet to the Black Sea, and the household of the Don cossacks.
