The Waste Museum belongs to those lesser-known museums of Kyiv, not listed in most tourist guides, but is an interesting place to visit for almost anybody.

Like most museums, the Waste Museum is all about history, only represented in an extraordinary way, as all of its exhibits are basically garbage, things that people once used and then threw away.

The history of the museum dates back to the early 1950s. Employees of the City Secondary Resources Plant in Kyiv, which collected scrap metal and other waste products, sometimes discovered interesting things in the trash heap like statuettes or old padlocks, which they put aside. As people often throw away many interesting items, the collection grew fast. By now, it counts thousands of exhibits; some of them are more than 200 years old. The museum opened last year and isn’t widely known, partly due to its location in the outskirts of Kyiv, on the territory of the City Secondary Resources Plant. Don’t be afraid of the barbed wire on the high fence and strict-looking security at the entrance. They are proud of the museum and will be pleased to give you a tour.