The Poltava Museum of local lore is one of the oldest museums in Ukraine. It was founded in 1891 as the Museum of history and nature Poltava province thanks to the initiative of Professor V. Dokuchaev. The Museum contains many objects of history, natural history, Ethnography, archeology and culture in General, and of the materials and evidence on known residents of the city.

The building, which today houses the Poltava Museum of local lore, was built in 1908 as the home of the Poltava province Zemstvo. The author of the project was V. Krichevsky, using the drawings of E. Shishkov. The building became the first example of the so-called Ukrainian architectural style in the region. In 1920 the building of the provincial Zemstvo was transferred to the Central proletarian Museum of Poltava.

In 1906 E. Skarzhinsky gave the Museum a large collection of Museum exhibits - about 20 thousand. A little later in the Museum was transferred to the collection of P. Bobrovsky. Until 1941, the Museum had a separate exhibition entitled "the glorious Cabinet of Poltava". During the great Patriotic war, the majority of Museum exhibits looted, and the room itself burned. In 50-ies. the Museum building was again rebuilt, with preservation of its basic forms.

The building, which houses the Poltava Museum, has a symmetric W-shaped. In the middle part there is a large meeting hall, Central hall with front steps and lobby. On the third floor of the building housed a variety of Museum areas and offices of the Museum staff.

Today in the Museum, there are over 190 thousand units. It has about 155 plot, 360 carpet, large collections of items of numismatic, archaeological finds, towels, embroidery, pottery and other valuable materials. The Museum exposition consists of the departments of history, archaeology, Ethnography, history, folk art and religion.