Paleontology Museum

The Paleontological Section of the Atyrau Regional Museum of History and Local Lore was opened in 2003. Today, the museum's total collection consists of over eight thousand exhibits.

The Paleontological Museum is the only museum in Kazakhstan dedicated to studying the geological epochs of the Earth's crust and the animal world that existed during the Mesozoic Era. The uniqueness and value of the exhibits collected here attract the interest of many museums around the world. All the specimens were discovered in the chalk hills of Akkeregeshyn and Aktolgay, located in our region. The museum holds great scientific significance and has the potential to become a starting point for the development of paleontological science in Kazakhstan.

The main goal of the museum is to provide the public with comprehensive knowledge about the animal life of Kazakhstan-from the simplest organisms to highly developed species-beginning with the earliest geological epochs and continuing to the present day.

The Atyrau region, stretching across a vast territory along the northern and northeastern shores of the Caspian Sea, is rich not only in natural resources but also in unique and diverse natural landscapes. In particular, the dazzling white chalk hills are a true natural wonder. The natural beauty of Mount Akkeregeshyn, located 60 km from the city of Kulsary, and the Aktolgay ridge, located on the border with the Aktobe region, gives the impression of a completely different, awe-inspiring world. The white cliffs, seemingly reaching into the sky, appear to glow in the sunlight and turn into a rainbow of colors at sunset. In spring, when the surrounding steppe is covered in flowers, the beauty of these places is indescribable. At the foot of the hills, one can find numerous plant species not found in other regions. These chalk elevations, situated on the border between the Atyrau and Aktobe regions, were once the floor of an ancient sea.

That is why numerous fossils have been found here: mollusks, octocorals, sea urchins, sponges, jellyfish, worms, and various types of shellfish and other representatives of marine fauna that lived tens of millions of years ago. Additionally, bones and teeth of ancient sharks, ichthyosaurs, and dinosaurs, as well as remains of now-extinct plants, fossilized trees, and more have been unearthed. These discoveries testify to the vibrant life that once thrived in this area. For every researcher, this territory is of great interest, and the chalk landscapes sculpted by wind and water inevitably attract attention with their picturesque appearance.

The fossilized remains of animals that inhabited these distant times are now on display at the Paleontological Section of the Atyrau Regional Museum of History and Local Lore.

The Paleontological Museum reflects the diversity and richness of the animal world in the geological past of the Atyrau region. Most of the exhibits were collected within the region. The museum's exhibition hall is organized in chronological order: the collections span from the Cambrian period (approximately 500 million years ago) to the present Holocene epoch.

The exhibits provide insight into the fauna that once inhabited the region millions of years ago. All paleontological collections representing the pre-human era are among the rarest and most unique treasures in the museum's holdings. The museum features cephalopods (ammonites, belemnites), bivalves, gastropods, and tentacled mollusks, sponges, worms, marine corals, representatives of the echinoderm phylum (fossils of sea lilies and sea urchins), vertebrate remains of ancient fish, fins, tails, shark and ray teeth, fossils of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs (bones and vertebrae), a mosasaur tooth, petrified tree fragments, parts of the seabed, and many other artifacts.

The museum regularly holds educational exhibitions, lectures, themed tours, and various projects, contributing to the growing number of visitors each year.

The founder of the Paleontological Museum and the first researcher in this field in the region was Yuri Alexandrovich Pastukhov-Honored Cultural Worker of the Republic of Kazakhstan, an outstanding local historian who dedicated his life to the study of paleontology. Beginning in 1986, he organized expeditions to the chalk ridges of Akkeregeshyn and Aktolgay for nearly 30 years, resulting in the collection of an invaluable array of ancient marine fossils. Today, these "silent witnesses of the past" allow us to glimpse the creatures that once inhabited our land and are available for public viewing only within the museum’s exhibition halls.