Metal

The items of the group reflect the economic development and the evolution of industrial production in the region. They include numerous tools and machine tools of craftsmen and workers of the late 19th to mid-20th century.

For example, a vertical drilling machine of the Kharkiv Locomotive Works (KhPZ) from the early 20th century, as well as examples of products of the domestic machine-building and tool industry of the second half of the 20th century.

Market and trade equipment is represented by a collection of levers, scales and balances; household items by collections of pocket watches, sewing machines and steam irons, as well as clothing fittings (buttons in particular), samovars, tea and sweet boxes, shot glasses and other tableware, some examples of which are among the oldest items of the “Metal” storage group, dating back to the 17th–18th centuries and the Middle Ages.

Interesting attributes of the Soviet era are trophy cups, pennants, and other prizes and awards of winners of sports competitions and of “socialist competition”. A collection of symbolic keys should also be mentioned: it opens with a key to the Kyiv Fortress of the 19th century and closes with keys to the Kharkiv metro.

A separate collection consists of items of religious worship, including church bells and covers of liturgical books, as well as the books themselves: a Gospel printed in Lviv in 1644, the Gospel of the Okhtyrka church of 1698, a Gospel in a silver cover from the Dormition Cathedral of 1785, and a Gospel with a cover made by Ivan Ravych in 1721, who is also the author of another cover.