The Museum of Local Lore is the first of 11 existing Polotsk museums belonging to the National Polotsk Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve.

The Polotsk Museum of Local Lore was founded in 1926 on the basis of collections collected by local lore groups, and was initially housed in the building of the Sofia Cathedral. Since the early 1930s. The District Local History Museum was transferred to the building of the former Lutheran church – a monument of neo-Gothic architecture, built at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.

In the post-war period, a city cinema worked for some time in the church, then grain was stored, and in 1950, an exhibition of the local history museum was placed in the church. The oldest museum of the city will tell visitors about Polotsk as the capital of the oldest Eastern Slavic principality – the cradle of Belarusian statehood and spirituality; acquaint with the development of international trade relations of the city and difficult times during the war years.

An important place in the exposition complex is occupied by the “Corner of a Peasant Hut XIX – n. XX centuries “, which presents the ethnographic specificity of the Polotsk region – samples of weaving, pottery, straw and weaving, woodworking, etc.

The exposition widely presents the materials of archaeological research of Polotsk and Polotsk, starting from the Stone Age; numismatic collections showing the history of the emergence of monetary relations; ancient weapons and products of medieval artisans. Currently, the exhibition area of the museum is 550 m2, including about 2 thousand exhibits.