The Tuapse Museum of Local History is located at the top of the Hill of Heroes. The historical exposition of the museum is dedicated to the period from ancient times to the present day. Also here you can see interesting ethnographic collections of costumes of various peoples who lived on the Caucasian coast.
The Tuapse Museum of Local History was established in 1946, when the city authorities began to restore the city after the war. It was decided to combine several private collections into one museum and place its exposition in a building at the top of the Hill of Heroes. The Velyaminovsky fort was built on this site in 1838, which protected the coast from Turkish landing ships, and was also used as a stronghold during the Caucasian War with the highlanders. In 1953, during the Crimean War, the British destroyed the fort, and after the end of the war, the local authorities decided not to restore the fort.
The Hill of Heroes is the historical center of Tuapse, it was decided to place the Museum of Local History here. Its collections are divided into 5 expositions: Archeology, Nature of the Tuapse region, Nikolai Poletaev – revolutionary and manager, Tuapse during the WWII, Ethnography of the peoples of the Tuapse region.
In the archaeological collection of the Tuapse Museum of Local History, you can see artifacts that archaeologists found during excavations in the Tuapse district. In the courtyard of the museum there is an ancient dolmen of the Bronze Age (2 thousand years BC), brought here from the valley of the Psynako river.
A significant part of the museum`s exposition is devoted to the era of industrialization in 1930s, when Nikolai Poletaev was the head of Tuapse. He has done a lot for the economic development of Tuapse. During his time, the Grozny-Tuapse oil pipeline was built, and the terminals of the Port of Tuapse were also most actively built. In 1972, the city authorities named the Museum of Local History in honor of Nikolai Poletaev and decided to reburial him on the Hill of Heroes near the museum.
