Odessa Numismatics Museum - Exhibitions and Projects

Exhibitions and Projects

The museum hosts many exhibitions of ancient and modern coins and banknotes, as well as other relics from Ukraine's ancient history. Information about them appears on the museum's website.

Between the 5th and 4th centuries BC most of the main Greek cities (poleis) of the Northern Black Sea region began to mint their own silver and copper coins: Pontic Olbia, Tyras, Chersonesos, Panticapaeum, Phanagoria, Nymphaion, Sindica and others. Olbia and Panticapaeum also started to mint gold coins. Such minting continued until the later half of the 3rd century AD.

Olbian monetary art between the last third of the 5th century BC and the final quarter of the 4th century BC is characterized by a phenomenon typical of the Hellenistic era: secularization, promotion of aesthetic principles and the spread of an archaistic style enhancing the sacred nature of the image depicted.

Besides its basic exhibition activity, the museum annually develops and produces a number of TV and related projects devoted to the history of Ukraine and Odessa.

In the early 1970s the museum first appeared in Odessa. It was given the name "Old Odessa" and set up in the watchtower of the old destroyed fortress located in Shevchenko Park. The founder and director of this museum became the well-known Odessa regional specialist and collector Rudolf Mikhailovich Tsiporkis. He was the foremost person with an encyclopedic knowledge regarding questions concerning Odessa's history. His collection of ancient postcards totaled more than 1,500 pieces. Rudolf Tsiporkis lived a long and interesting life and died in 1999 at the age of 90. Appreciating the memory of a remarkable Odessan, and continuing the business he began, the Odessa Numismatics Museum in 1999 organized an exhibition of postcards and other historical documents which was given the name the Gallery "Old Odessa". Several TV programmes on the culture of Odessa and its history have been based on this collection.