The most important museum in Mykolaiv covers over two centuries of shipbuilding history in what was once the shipbuilding capital of the Russian and Soviet empires. Models of warships, original technical drawings, navigational instruments, and documents trace the construction of the Black Sea Fleet from Catherine the Great's first frigates through to the massive aircraft carriers of the Soviet era. The permanent collection includes artefacts from the Potemkin-era founding of the city and documents the extraordinary scale of what was built here — at peak Soviet production, Mykolaiv's yards employed tens of thousands of workers. The building itself is a 19th-century naval administration structure near the city's historic core.