“The Museum of Polar Research is a socially necessary idea,” said Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Gliński during the signing of an agreement on Friday for the Ministry of Culture to co-manage the Museum of Polar Research in Puławy (Lubelskie province).
Gliński emphasised that the creation of the institution in the form of the Museum of Polar Research was very well received among Polish polar explorers and scientists. “It is a socially necessary idea. The Museum, through its professional work and institutionalization, will remind, study and popularize the very important scientific achievements concerning the exploration of both poles: the Arctic and the Antarctic, as well as polar areas. Poles also took part in it,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport Piotr Gliński.
On Friday (25 June), the Deputy Prime Minister signed an agreement for co-management of the Museum of Polar Research in Puławy by the Ministry of Culture together with the Self-government of the Lublin Province. From January, the Ministry will provide at least one million PLN of subsidies to the institution, and from July this year investment grants will be available. In turn, the subsidy from the budget of the Lubelskie Voivodeship will be no less than PLN 500 thousand.
The Deputy Prime Minister stressed that the Ministry is investing in various cultural institutions. “In the last five years, we have been creating, building, changing more than a hundred cultural institutions through a wide variety of projects (…) We have recently opened a new Piłsudski Museum in Sulejówek, we are also building many other institutions, with the Polish History Museum at the forefront,” said Gliński.
He added that there were plans to build a new headquarters for the National Museum of Technology and the Natural History Museum.
Andrzej Piotrowski, the director of the Polar Research Museum, said that one of the goals of the new museum would be the popularization of knowledge about Polish polar research. The facility is scheduled to open to the public in the fall. That’s when the first exhibitions in the building will open, with two outdoor exhibitions coming in July.
“One of these exhibitions will talk about why Pulawy is the place where the museum was created, and the other exhibition will show what polar landscapes are like, what the polar world looks like in different places,” announced Piotrowski.
The Museum of Polar Research is the first such museum in Poland. Among the exhibits, there are, among others, walrus bone sculptures, Eskimo costume, a model of a canoe, which come from the collection of Professor Aleksander Kosiba from pre-war expeditions to Greenland. Visitors will also be able to see snowmobiles and sledges from Polish polar stations. The museum also has a collection of shells, fossils and amber from Siberia.