Dyatkovo Glass Works Museum

The Dyatkovo Crystal Museum stands at 159 Lenina St. in central Dyatkovo, linked to the Dyatkovo Crystal Plant. The factory was founded in 1790 by the Maltsovs; the town became a hub of Russian artistic glassmaking. The collection holds over 13,000 items: serial samples from all eras, gifts to statesmen, sports trophies, interior pieces and Soviet artists' work. Exhibits cover about two thousand square metres on two floors. The museum is among the few where you can book a tour of active production and see melting, blowing and cutting stages. On the second floor some pieces stand on open podiums without cases — rare in museums. The holdings include fragments of the destroyed Transfiguration Church furnishing, including parts of a crystal iconostasis and multicoloured glass candlesticks — unique church décor monuments. Combine Dyatkovo with a town walk and district chalk quarries: factory, museum and industrial landscape form a full route through the oblast north's glass capital.