The museum collection of Kastav region was born from the desire of the people of Kastav to found their own museum. In the original plan, the idea was a memorial collection dedicated to Vladimir Nazor, the writer and director of the Kastava Teacher’s School from 1908 to 1918, but as the scope of the material collected exceeded the already mentioned context, it was decided that the MZK committee would first be established in 1961. and then a general museum that includes not only the town of Kastav but the entire Kastav region.
From the very beginning, the display was worked on very professionally since the expert employees of the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral of Rijeka were hired to create the original display. The material for the first permanent display of the Museum Collection of Kastav region was collected for about twenty years, and the Museum was opened on the Day of the Town of Kastav on June 6, 1981.
The first members of the expert team to set up the Museum Collection of Kastavština were the curators from PPMHP: Radmila Matejčić – for archeology and cultural history, Željko Barbalić – for ethnography, while the materials were collected by curators Goroslav Oštrić and Milan Galić. Ivan Cuculić was then in charge of a part of the NOB lineup. The Project Institute from Rijeka, led by engineer Darko Turato, was in charge of the interior decoration.
From the opening ceremony of MZK, 1981.
The space above Kastav’s medieval Volta in the former premises of the Kastav Municipality was chosen for the museum’s location, where the Museum Collection of Kastav region still operates today.
The original composition consisted of five units: Geographical location of Kastav and Kastavština, Kastav and Kastavština from prehistory to the Middle Ages, New Age (crafts, trade, societies, roads, enlightenment, education, famous personalities), labor movement, NOB and ethnography.
The museum collection of Kastavština includes about 2,000 items of cultural and historical material. The fund consists of manuscript materials, photographs and postcards, school works and drawings, textile items, symbols of cultural and educational associations, the national revival in Istria, the labor movement, and weapons from the period of the National Liberation Army .
The museum collection of Kastav region, in addition to promoting the area of the city of Kastav and Kastavština, has a cultural-historical and ethnographic character of promoting the life, customs and work of the inhabitants of Kastavština.