The museum of the tram in Minsk

The real tram-Museum is located in Botanicheskaya Street in the city of Minsk. It is situated on the territory of a depot. In 1959 this tram was presented to the residents of Minsk from Leningrad. For a long time the tram has driven passengers through the city streets; and when it fell into disrepair it was decided to use it as a memory of the first tram. Inside of it was created a popular among tourists and citizens museum.

In the early 20th century one of the most popular and available types of public transportation became trams. Initially in Minsk there appeared horse-drawn railways, which were a carriage pulled by a horse and driven by a driver. They connected two railway stations and drove 10 trips a day.  In the process of modernization in the city began to appear the rails for trams, which would have been driven by an engine driver.

Though the scale of the Museum is limited to just one carriage, there is something to see.

The exposition of the Museum is more than 200 unique pictures. The first picture which is kept in the Museum is dated 1908. It depicts the horse-drawn railway during a flood.

Not so long ago schoolchildren, students of local history, were interested in the history of the development and existence of trams in Minsk and conducted a great research. The Museum kept a whole album where is all the information from the schoolchildren.

The first electric tram appeared in Minsk in 1929. Five years later on the streets of Minsk were launched seven routes the length of which was 33 km.  In 1934 about 56 trams were collected in the depot. During the Great Patriotic War almost all the tram tracks were blown up. Restoration works began only in 1945 and moved very slowly because of a bad economic situation.  

In the 1970s the city authorities decided that tram transportation was very noisy and not environmentally clean form of transport. This is due to the fact that trolleybuses began to appear in the city at the same time with the trams. The trolleybuses were considered to be more convenient form of transport that did not require such financial costs as the trams. That is why many tram tracks were started to disassemble. Today in Minsk only 5 percent of the total amount of transport is the trams.  The total length of the tram line is 97 km.

In the Museum visitors can see many interesting exhibits.  There is a uniform coat of the first tram driver, historical documents and archival pictures.  The Museum also preserved the control system of the carriage of the 50s. Recently in the Museum collection was presented a German model of the tram, which had been made in Germany in 1874.

In 2010 a full-fledged Museum of Minsk city transport was planned opening in the building of the repair and engineering plant on Partisan Avenue. However the reconstruction of the building into a Museum has not been completed yet.