The Grodekov Museum is the Far East's most important regional history museum, housed in a distinctive red-brick building in the city centre. Its four floors cover the natural history, archaeology, ethnography, and political history of the Khabarovsk Krai from prehistoric times to the present.
The natural history sections include ice-age megafauna, Amur tiger specimens, and the Amur river ecosystem. The ethnographic galleries are particularly strong: detailed collections of objects, clothing, boats, and ritual items from the Nanai, Ulchi, Evenki, and other indigenous peoples of the Amur basin — cultures that predate Russian colonisation by thousands of years and are increasingly rare. The Soviet-era history section gives a frank account of the gulag network in the region. Allow at least two hours.