Kandt
Richard Kandt was a German-born doctor, soldier, poet, scholar and naturalist who became the first European resident of Rwanda from 1907 and was appointed the country's first Resident Governor. His administrative residence on Nyarugenge hill grew into a cluster of commercial houses that formed the commercial capital of the territory until Belgian rule began in 1921 — which is to say, Kigali grew outwards from this building.
Kandt spent his time in Rwanda researching the natural environment. He was the first to identify the remotest source of the Nile in what is now Nyungwe, and is credited with introducing coffee farming to the region — an inheritance still visible in the Kivu coffee cooperatives.
The museum
The house is now the Museum of Natural History of Rwanda, with exhibitions on the country's geology, mining, volcanoes and wildlife, alongside material on Kandt's own explorations and the colonial period. It is a compact museum — an hour is enough — and it covers the one part of Rwanda's story that the memorials and the ethnographic collections do not.
Where it fits
Central Kigali, easy to combine with the city tour — the first colonial building in the city is usually the tour's opening stop, and this is the natural companion to it. Best used on an arrival or departure day. See Kigali.