Bishkek Museums

For those visitors with time on their hands, Bishkek has a number of museums.  Some of them are small and receive few visitors, but you will receive a warm welcome in all of them.  In most of them, the displays are in Russian and/or Kyrgyz only.

The most famous museums are:

The Historical Museum – Ala Too Square – Tue-Sun 10:00-15:00

This used to be called the Lenin Museum – and some older residents still refer to it as such.  The ground floor houses temporary exhibits but the permanent exhibits depict natural and political history of the country and the Soviet heritage.  There is a statue of Lenin leading the revolutionary masses a ceiling painting of a wedding party attended by the melting pot of the nationalities of the Soviet Union.  The historical museum began life in 1926 in the “boyhood home” of Mikhail Frunze now preserved in the Frunze Museum – in 1937 it was transferred to what is now the Friendship building (see Zoological Museum) before moving to it’s present home in the 1980’s.    

Exhibits include stones with rock paintings from Saimaluu-Tash; armour and everyday objects dating from the Bronze Age; discoveries from archaeological excavations such as early nomadic adornments dating from the 1st to the 5th centuries (AD) - including golden artifacts from the Chui Valley's Shushing tomb; the Turkic stone culture collection; the Talas stones with runic lettering; ceramic, glass and metal articles; and numerous ancient coins. The museum has rich ethnographic collections of objects from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries which include articles made of felt, wool, chiy, leather and wood made by Kyrgyz artisans; and collections of traditional Kyrgyz embroidery, fleecy and non-fleecy weaving, national dress, original women's adornments, and highly artistic horse harness supplies.  Many visitors also find of great interest materials from the Soviet period such as the collections of documents, photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures, and gifts presented to the Kyrgyz Republic by foreign governments.

The Museum of Fine Arts – 196 Sovietskaya – Tue-Sun : 09:00-17:00

Dedicated to Kyrgyz folk and applied arts; Russian and Soviet Art - the museum began as the State Picture Gallery and was located in the St Nicholas Church in Oak Park.  The church now houses the Gallery of the Artists’ Union. The present building was built in 1974 as one of the projects in the grand scheme for improving the capital and features a yurt and a permanent exhibition of shyrdaks and other traditional crafts.  The full collection numbers some 17500 works of art: paintings, drawings, sculptures and examples of traditional decorative and applied art.   There are also several galleries of paintings from the soviet period, a room of replicas of Egyptian, Greek and classical Western sculptures, and a collection of linocuts based on the Manas epic by Hertzen.  The museum also houses temporary exhibits.

Frunze Museum – 346 Frunze  - Tue-Fri : 09:00-17:00; Sat-Sun : 09:00-16:00

The museum traces the life and career of Mikhail Frunze – and what is supposed to be the house in which he was born and brought up is preserved on the ground floor (although there is some doubt whether this is the right house – it is typical of the period) – and there is an exhibition of the achievements of the city and Kirgizia during the Soviet period. 

 Less well known museums are:

The Tinibek Sadykov Museum  – Togolok Moldo – Mon-Fri : 09:00-12:00 + 13:00-16:00.  This museum contains some of the smaller works of the Kyrgyz monumental sculptor Tinibek Sadykov – some of whose larger works can be found in the Philharmonia, The Martyrs to the Revolution at the corner of Prospect Chui and Sovietskaya and in Victory Square.

The Aaly Tokombaev Museum – 109 Chuikova – Mon-Fri : 09:00-17:00  Tokombaev was a famous Kyrgyz akin (bard), poet and composer and he helped to standardize written Kyrgyz using a modified Alphabet.  In 1990 his house was turned into a museum with three rooms containing exhibits dedicated to his life and work - literary,political and private life.  There is also an exhibition dedicated to the exodus of many Kyrgyz to China in 1916 following the uprising against the Russians.  (There is a statue of Tokombaev to the South of the Fine Arts Museum). 

The Gaspar Aitiev Studio – on the corner of Tynystanova and Chokmorova.  Aitiev was a painter and sculptor and the museum is housed in what was his studio and houses some of his work including landscapes, sketches in charcoal and pastels and sculptures from driftwood.   

The Semen Chuykov Museum – 87 Chuykova.  Semen Chuykov was a famous artist, born in Pishpek, and the one of the founders of the Museum of Fine Arts.  He painted the "Daughter of Soviet Khirgizia", a copy of which was sold for USD850000 in Moscow in 2007, making it one of the most expensive of Kyrgyzstan's  paintings. 

The Olga Manuilova Museum - 108 Tynystanova - Mon-Fri 09:00-17:00.   Olga Manuilova was a famous artists and sculptress who is responsible for a number of monuments to be found on the streets of Bishkek, (for example Toktogul and Panfilov).  She died in Bishkek, in 1984, aged 91 and the following year a museum in her honour was planned – but it only opened its doors finally in 2000.  Located in a small, Russian style, house on Tynystanova Street (at the crossroads with Kievskaya) it comprises four rooms.  Two are dedicated to her life , displaying her diaries, letters, and photos (of her, her family and friends).  There are also some of her drawings and minature sculptures, including sketches of some famous contemprorary Russina and Kyrgyz people.  

The Open Air Sculpture Museum – in Oak Park.   Inaugurated in 1984 to mark the 60^th Anniversary of the Kyrgyz Republic, sculptors from all over the Soviet Union were invited to submit pieces under the title “Peace and Labour” and there work was exhibited in the park.  Many of the metal pieces, including a bronze bust of Yuri Gargarin, have since disappeared – plundered, stolen, for their scrap value.

The Toktogul Literary Museum – 109 Toktogula – Mon-Fri 08:00-12:30 + 13:30-17:30.  Dedicated to Kyrgyz literature – this museum has many papers, photos and memorabilia.

Mineralogical Museum – 164 Propect Chui – Mon-Fri : 09:00-15:30 Contains examples of minerals found throughout the country. 

The Zoological Museum – In the Academy of Sciences, Prospect Chui – Mon-Fri 10:00-17:00

The National Bank Museum – Contains examples of money – coins, banknotes, treasury documents - both real and counterfeit.

The Ala Archa National Park Museum – a few kilometers inside the park.  The two storey building houses the administration offices of the park and has a room dedicated examples of the wildlife found here and Issyk Kul. 

The National Library – although not strictly a Museum, the library has over the years since it was founded in 1934 it has become one of the major repositories of culture in the country.  It moved into its present home on Sovietskaya in 1984 – to mark its 50^th anniversary.  The library collects copies of all literature published in the country, as well as a variety of publications from other CIS countries and further afield.  There are a total of over 6 million documents, (books, magazines, newspapers, sheet music, records, patent and other reference documents and some 97000 Doctoral dissertations, private papers of several prominent people) in 89 languages – including a copy of the first book ever to be printed in Russian – “Apostol” which was printed in Moscow in 1564.  The library adds some 120 thousand items every year. 

Interestingly, there are books in Kyrgyz written in Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic scripts - reflecting the various changes that have taken place in the transformation from an oral, nomadic tradition.

It also houses a number of exhibitions and conferences every year.

Unfortunately, closed at the moment for renovations are:

The Archeological Museum – in the Academy of Sciences

The Geological Museum - 30 Erkindik

Ata-Beit Memorial and Museum in Chon-Tash - Chon-Tash village, (following the road from the city center to Ala-Archa National Park, turn left at the arch with the red star, then after about 2-3 miles, in the center of the village, turn left and the entrance is just past a large farm on the right. There is a grey sign announcing the memorial. Turn right up the hill and follow the road to the parking lot.) - Every day, 9am-5pm

This somber memorial and museum was built to commemorate those arrested and killed in Bishkek in November 1937 for political reasons. It is believed that during the first week of November, 1937, nearly 140 people - most of whom were within the Kyrgyz Soviet government - were rounded up, brought to the "resort" of Chon-Tash, shot and buried in a mass grave in an old brick kiln. The identities of all but one of the recovered bodies have been documented, putting a very human face on the excesses of Stalinist times. The event was kept a secret until the 1980s when a watchman at the time of the murders told his daughter just before he died. After perestroika, she told the police. In 1991, the bodies were moved to a mass grave nearby and a memorial was built.

The site includes a striking monument; a museum that includes documents, belongings and photographs of those killed; and the kiln where bodies were dumped.