Vanavara regional museum. Tunguska meteorite exhibition

On June 30, 1908 at 7a.m. a giant fireball flew over vast territory of Central Siberia approximately in north-west direction at interfluves area between Nizhnyaya Tunguska and Lena rivers. Its flight was followed by sound and light effects and ended up with a huge explosion with further complete taiga forest felling in the area between rivers Kimchu and Khushmo which are the feeders of Podkamennaya Tunguska. The explosion took place at the height of 5-10 km above the ground at 7.14 a.m. (local time) and was followed by an earthquake and air blast. That is how the story of “Tunguska alien” has started, which now is more that 100 years old.

One of the first researches of Tunguska meteorite phenomenon was famous Russian scientist Leonid Kulik who left for Vanavara in 1927. With two evenk assistants he has found a giant hollow surrounded by rather small mountains covered with fallen trees. After making his way around the hollow, Kulik realized that the tree cutting had a radial structure. Later, when he got at the epicenter of explosion, he has found a “forest of dead trees without branches and tops”. The researcher noticed a steady burn of trees, bushes and moss at a large surface,. He also has found dozens of new flat funnels there with the diameter range from 70cm to 50 meters and 4 meters deep. Also there were several cases of vegetable life mutation in the explosion zone.

However, despite numerous signs of celestial body crash, none of its remains have ever been found. Moreover, nobody knows the nature of Tunguska phenomenon and it causes lots of speculations: meteorite crash, cometary shower, laser attack, spacecraft crash, volcanic eruption, space dust cloud collision, laser signal from extraterrestrial civilization and others.

In 2008 the Tunguska phenomenon celebrated its 100 anniversary. In honor of this anniversary an open-air exhibition has been founded and museum workers has collected old stuff, photos, some books which previously belonged to ancient Evenkia dwellers. Among precious possessions there is a fragment of shaman clothing – metal diver created in presoviet times. Apart from the diver there are some utensils: 5 liter kettle made of copper in tsar’s times and some silverware. Also they have a collection of evenk national instruments of labor and everyday objects: ancient scrapers for deer skin, saddles, beaten spears from the beginning of the 20th century, which were intended for hunting, also there is an evenk baby bassinet for carrying children on deers and metal bells. The exhibits are provided by district citizens. Cultural and historic atmosphere of the beginning of 20th century is created by evenk camping-ground, hunters hut, golomo which is a winter taiga evenk raw-hide tent (two man construction allows to stay inside for the night in winter, to make a fire and to feel protected from large predators), arangaz – evenk winter burial dumping (because of the frozen soil, evenk people were burying their dead on the trees: they were making a hollow in a thick layer of larch and then they put the body inside this hollow). Among the exhibits there is a saw cut of 180 year old larch from the spot of Tunguska phenomenon (it can be easily seen from growth rings that the grow has quickened since the explosion) and three-needle-leaved bunches of pine as a sign of natural mutation process disruption at the spot of Tunguska meteorite explosion.