Chita Regional Museum of Local Lore was opened in 1895. It appeared thanks to the initiative of local enthusiast Alexei Kirillovich Kuznetsov. He was trying to recreate and show in the walls of the museum the peculiarities of the life of the ancient inhabitants of Transbaikal, and also to collect rare artifacts concerning the history of the region. The building, which houses the exposition, was built in 1914.
More than 190 thousand items of the history of Transbaikal are kept in the collection of the Chita Local Lore Museum. Materials on archeology, ethnography, culture, religion, economic set-up of people, inhabiting the Transbaikal from the remote to modern times, are presented. Most of the museum's exposition is devoted to the history of the Decembrists who served a penal sentence in Chita. In the museum the visitors like the stuffed animals that are found in the forests of Trans Baikal.