This collection consists of artifacts created by the Finno-Ugric peoples who inhabited the north-east of Russia during the Iron Age. It is notable for its metal sculptures from the Kama valley, dated to the 1st millenium BC, and on the basis of the zoomorphic motifs used on these sculptures all the artifacts in the collection are classified as Perm or Kama Animal Style.

These articles were widely used in everyday life. For instance, burial grounds have yielded metal decorations with ‘jingling' pendants for clothing; often these are zoomorphic pendants, plaques, clasps and belt ends, which served as amulets.

Most important and interesting are the pieces of a ritual nature discovered on cult sites, which include zoo- and anthropomorphic figures (combining elements of a man and an animal simultaneously), such as a figurine of a bear/man and a bronze pendant in the form of a bird-shaped idol with an anthropomorphic mask upon its breast.

Metal plaques with intricate multi-figured two- or three-tiered compositions of animals and anthropomorphs are full of symbols: there is an image of 7 elk/men walking on an anteater, which is linked with the cult of Gemini; used at the final stage of a tribal religious ceremony the gift–plaque symbolizes that the stock's envoy has received the gifts; the plaque depicts a three-tiered, vertical view of the world, in which birds symbolize the sky, the elk – the earth and the anteater with 7 fishes in its belly is the underground world.

Bronze Plaque 6th-8th centuries AD Larger view Openwork Plaque 6th-8th century AD Larger view

Bronze Plaque 6th-8th centuries AD Larger view