The first floor of this small museum houses a permanent collection that provides a short introduction to the history of photography, especially Russian photography. Archive photographs provide fleeting insights into the lives of the city's inhabitants since the dawn on photography and are testament to the sometimes brutal changes that Nizhny, like many other Russian cities, underwent in the 20th century. Perhaps most interesting are the unique windows onto the past provided by photographs of peasants' and Old Believers' villages at the end of the 19th century. The gallery's upstairs space hosts changing exhibits, which have recently included a showing of photographs of Lake Baikal (complete with videos of fluffy seals).