The museum was founded in May 1963. Iosif Varfolomeevich Khlystunov became the initiator of the museum opening. The regional House of Culture was chosen as a building for the museum. The museum was founded on a voluntary basis. By the resolution of the Administration of the Smolensk region in 1999, in order to ensure the preservation of historical materials and funds of history and culture of the Smolensk region, a regional museum of local lore was opened. Its first director was Valentin Vasilievich Kurepin, a labor veteran who had previously headed the regional committee for culture and cinema for many years.

More than two centuries ago, retired Cossacks founded the redoubt of the Smolensk Mother of God on the lands of the region. Giving the name to the village, it became the starting point for the development of the territory by the Russian-speaking population. The diverse details of this history are revealed to the visitors of the Smolensk Museum of Local Lore. Its funds contain finds of archaeologists made in the foothills of Altai. There are richly presented objects and things that illustrate the way of life of immigrants over the past 200 years.

The ethnographic collection is complemented by numismatic exhibits and a collection of military insignia from different times. Photos and documents transferred to the museum for storage record the life milestones of the region's settlements. This is evidence of the twists and turns of the twentieth century in Altai: the civil war, collective and state farm construction, the participation of residents of the region in the Great Patriotic War. Peacetime sections introduce the development of culture, sports and education in the Smolensk region.

7 halls await visitors to the museum (the Historical Hall, the Hall of Ethnography, the Hall of Agriculture, the Hall of Military Glory, the Hall of Public Education, Culture, Sports and Healthcare, the Exhibition Hall) with 7 thousand exhibits.

Photos courtesy of the Smolensk Museum of Local Lore.