Вилейский краеведческий музей, Local history museum in Vileyka, Belarus

The Vileyka Regional Museum is a local history museum in Vileyka, Belarus, housed in a former fire station that is a monument of civil architecture from the early 20th century. Its displays are organized by theme and collection, with sections such as "Time," "Origins," "Viliya," "Folk Crafts and Trades of the Vileyka Region," "House," "War," "Suffering," "Vileyka," and "Konstantin Tyszkiewicz and His Expedition along the Viliya."

The museum opened its first exhibition in 1985 after being founded a few years earlier, and its collections have grown to hold more than twenty thousand items. It now includes stone tools from ancient settlements, jewelry from the twelfth century, and materials from local excavations that show how trade and daily life changed over time.

In the folk art section, visitors can see painted carpets and handmade pieces by local craftspeople, showing how families decorated their homes and passed on skills. A separate display of drawings by Belarusian artists, some with signatures from astronauts, connects the town to a tradition of visual storytelling that continues to be shown here.

Plan to move through the rooms slowly, since the displays are close together and many objects carry small handwritten or typed notes. The building is on a town street near local shops and cafes, so it is easy to combine a visit with a short walk around the center.

The painting "Over the Aral" by Andrei Sokolov hangs here: its sketch travelled to the Salyut-6 orbital station, and the finished canvas carries the station's onboard stamps and cosmonauts' signatures. The museum also keeps a copy of "Soldier with a Boy" (1866) by Nikodim Silivanovich, an academic of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts born in the Vileyka area; only two of his originals are known in Belarus.