The State Museum of Natural History at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University is one of the oldest museums in Europe. It is among Ukraine’s major centers for exhibitions, research, education, scientific and ecological orientation. Soon after Kharkiv Imperial University was founded, the Board of Directors approached the principals of all colleges with a request to send outstanding nature specimens to the University. In 1805, Count Severyn Pototskyi, supervisor of the Kharkiv educational area, bought from professor Andre in Hanover and an Italian named Chetti in St. Petersburg a collection of various fauna, including corals, shells, mollusca, insects, birds, fossils, and minerals. The collection arrived in Kharkiv on of April 2, 1807. This date is considered to be the date of the Museum’s foundation. Its stock of exhibits is being constantly enlarged by outstanding scholars and public figures, as well as by all lovers of nature. The Museum has become a place for storing unique scientific valuables.

The Museum currently numbers over 250,000 exhibits from all over the world, including stuffed animals and animal bodies, skulls, skeletons, eggs of birds, wet and dry specimens of different animals, rock and mineral samples, fossils and skeletons, dummies, and plaster casts of extinct animals. The 23 halls of the Museum house four exhibitions: Geology; Invertebrates and Vertebrates, Evolution of the Organic World, and Conservation of Nature. The exhibits are organized as systematic collections, biogroups and dioramas supplemented with audio-visual recordings.

The Museum also works as a training facility. It runs classes for students, consultations for researches, and short-term exhibitions on conservation, mineralogy, and paleontology.

The Museum closely cooperates with numerous research institutions and museums of the world. Every year its exhibitions are visited by about 40,000, residents, tourists, guests from abroad, and researchers.