Military History Museum of the Far Eastern Military District

The Military History Museum of the Far Eastern Military District was created on 31 May 1983, the 125th anniversary of the foundation of Khabarovsk. The commander of the Far Eastern Military District Ivan Tretyak ordered the expansion of the Khabarovsk Officer's House exhibition room into a full fledged museum through the transfer of artifacts from the I.N. Grodekov Local History Museum.^[1] The building housing the exhibits was built between 1903 and 1907, it was designed by Khabarovsk engineers N. F. Alexandrov and L. O. Tchaikovsky. It functioned as a branch of Gosbank until 1930,^[2] from 1930 until the museum's creation it served various military purposes, in 1945 it was the headquarters of the 2nd Far Eastern Front. A memorial plaque honoring Marshal of the Soviet Union Aleksandr Vasilevsky can be found on the building's facade.^[3] The building currently holds the status of an architectural monument of federal importance.^[2]

In 2009, Anatoliy Serdyukov was appointed as the new Minister of Defense of Russia. Serdyukov's 2008 Russian military reform was characterized by a sharp cut in spending. Out of the museum's twenty employees only four retained their positions, continuing to work as security personnel. The museum's bank account was also terminated. Although the museum had officially closed, it continued to serve excursions free of charge on rare occasions. In September 2013, the new defense minister Sergey Shoygu initiated a reform sponsoring organizations of cultural importance, effectively reopening the museum. The Khabarovsk Military Museum is the only war museum in the Russian Far East.^[1]