A small room packed with boxes and shelves. Each of them contains items which are of great value for science. This is the Scientific Museum of Forest Ecosystems of the Sukachev Institute of Forest of the Krasnoyarsk Science Center SB RAS. The idea concerning its establishment belongs to Eugeny Semenovich Petrenko, the former director of the Institute, Candidate of Biological Sciences. Here, you cannot find usual glass shelves. «Everything which is collected here is, mainly, used for scientific purposes», explains the director of the museum, scientific supervisor of the zoological collection, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Yuri Nikolaevich Baranchikov. Visitors can enjoy the exhibition only on the Doors Open Days which are organized in remarkable dates, for example, on the Day of Russian Science, the 8 th of February. «We would create real expositions or, at least, a virtual museum, but there is the lack of funding», says the scientist.

The museum includes the following four collections: zoological, botanical, a collection of forest microorganisms including pathogenic fungi, and a dendrochronological one, which consists of trees cores and cuts; the museum also includes the arboretum located near the Institute. The zoological collection contains vertebrates and insects. New items have recently been added to the collection of insects.
One of the oldest geologists of Krasnoyarsk, Igor Semenovich Zakharzhevsky presented the Institute with hid collection of butterflies. It contains about 1500 items of stretched insects belonging to at least 40 families of lepidoptera.

Now Igor Semenovich is in his nineties and the maintenance of the collection requires considerable efforts. The Siberian entomologist- enthusiast had to think about the future of his collection. He was suggested that he should sell it, and he could also give it to the Regional Museum. However, he decided to hand it over to the V.N.Sukachev Institute of Forest, whose entomologists had long been his partners in research. The collection will be given the necessary care, as he says.

However, to acquire to collection is a small part of the issue. Before it is shown in the museum it is necessary to determine the species and to classify them. In a number of cases, specialists in specific groups of lepidopterous should be invited.

«Zakharzhevsky is a very enthusiastic person he had his style of catching butterflies which allowed him to create marvelous collection items. The fact that he gave his collection to us makes us feel proud», says Yuri Nikolaevich Baranchikov.