Best museums of Moscow (42 objects in alphabetical order)
Andrei Rublev museum collection in the Andronikov Monastery contains works by icon painters of the circle of Dionysius and Andrei Rublev and other masterpieces, including the icon of the Savior Almighty from the first half of the 13th century. As of 2018, the exposition contains more than 13 thousand items: icons, archaeological finds, handwritten and early printed books, as well as originals and copies of frescoes.
Apple Technology Museum in Moscow was created in 2012 through the efforts of collector Andrey Antonov and businessman Evgeny Butman. The collection includes hundreds of pieces – personal computers, peripherals, accessories and much more.
Armoury Chamber is a Moscow treasury museum, which is part of the Grand Kremlin Palace complex. Organizationally, the museum functions as the Research and Storage Department “Armoury Chamber” of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.
Automobiles of the World (Motors of October) is the largest automobile museum in Moscow according to his owner Dmitry Oktyabrsky. It was his surname that made the choice of the second name of the museum, and not historical events. About 3,000 exhibits are presented on the renovated area of 7,000 m², 150 of which are four-wheeled vehicles.
Bulgakov’s House is a non-profit partnership museum founded by enthusiasts and philanthropists, fans of the outstanding Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. The first museum in Russia dedicated to the work of M. A. Bulgakov opened in 2004. The museum theater is located on the first floor of house number 10 on Bolshaya Sadovaya (Garden Ring, Moscow). M. A. Bulgakov lived here from 1921 to 1924, and it is in this house that the main scenes of the novel The Master and Margarita are played out.
Central Armed Forces Museum also known as the Museum of the Soviet Army, is located in northern Moscow, Russia, near the Red Army Theater and Ekaterininsky Park.
Central Museum of the Air Force is one of the largest aviation museums in Europe, preserving the history of the creation and development of military aviation in Russia. It is a branch of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. It is located in the village of Monino (53 km from Moscow to the east, Moscow region).
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin’s House Museum is a memorial museum in Moscow dedicated to the life and work of the artist Feodor Chaliapin. Founded in 1988 as a branch of the Russian National Museum of Music. The initiator of the opening was the first wife of the singer, Iola Tornagi, who proposed to the Soviet authorities to organize a memorial house in the 18th century mansion, where the singer had been living from 1910 to 1922.
Historical Museum (GIM) is Russia’s largest national historical museum. Founded in 1872, the building on Red Square (near Kremlin Wall) in Moscow was designed in 1875-1883 according to the project of architect Vladimir Sherwood and engineer Anatoly Semyonov. Since 1990, it has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Red Square ensemble.
House of the Russian Abroad, named after Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is a Moscow Museum and administrative complex that combines the functions of a museum, an archive, a library, and a research center. Founded in 1995 on the initiative of the historian Viktor Moskvin. The founders were the Government of Moscow, the Russian Public Foundation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the publishing house “IMKA-Press.” Since 2009, the sole founder has been the Moscow Department of Culture.
Integration (State Museum – Cultural Center “Integration” named after N. A. Ostrovsky) – a museum specializing in supporting people with disabilities, created based on the museum apartment of Nikolai Ostrovsky in a historic building on Tverskaya Street (house No. 14).
Lomakov Museum of Vintage Cars and Motorcycles is the first auto and motorcycle museum in Moscow (Russia). The first non-state museum in Russia since 1917. Founded in 1987. Opened for tours in 1991.
Moscow Planetarium and its museum is one of the largest in the world and the oldest planetarium in Russia. Located in Moscow near the new territory of the Moscow Zoo, on the Garden Ring. It was built in 1927-1929 according to the project of architects M. O. Barshch, M. I. Sinyavsky and engineer G. A. Zunblat.
Mosfilm is a Soviet and Russian film studio founded in 1924. One of the largest film studios in Europe, based on which most Russian film, television and video products are produced. The film studio has a museum and a tour desk (10:00-18:30), which organizes programs that allow you to learn about interesting facts from the history of the Mosfilm and its best movies and see the scenery, costumes, and equipment used during filming.
Motors of war in Moscow is the world’s largest exposition of wheeled military equipment. More than 150 exhibits from all countries participated in the Second World War. 17 of them exist today in a single copy in the world. Many cars took part in the movies.
Museum of Contemporary History of Russia (until September 1998, the Central Museum of the Revolution of the USSR, the Museum of the Revolution) is one of the world’s largest museums of contemporary history. The museum is in the center of Moscow (Tverskaya Street, 21), in a building that is an architectural monument of Moscow’s classicism of the late 18th century. From 1831 to 1917, it housed the Moscow English Club.
Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow (formerly the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics) is a space museum in the stylobate of the monument “To the Conquerors of Space” on the Cosmonauts Alley near the VDNKh Park. The museum was opened on April 10, 1981 – on the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space flight.
Museum of Japanese cars (Buckets empire). 90% of the Buckets Empire Museum’s collection is private cars: owners of rare Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas and Mazdas leave here cars for storage.
Museum of Handicrafts (Commercial and Industrial Museum of Handicrafts of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo) was founded in 1885 in Moscow. It existed under various names at Leontievsky Lane, 7 (Stanislavsky Street) until 1999, when, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, it became part of the All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art.
Museum of the History of AMO ZIL cars was founded in 1974 and reflected the periods of the plant’s creation from 1916, the period of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 and the post-war period. The museum had six halls, where about 3,000 exhibits were presented, over 10,000 items of storage of various documents.
Museum of Ivan Turgenev (Mumu’s house) is a wooden mansion on Ostozhenka Street (Moscow), 37, where I. S. Turgenev’s mother, V. P. Turgenev, lived from 1840-1850 when the events that formed the outline of the story “Mumu” occurred. In 2007, the museum of the writer was founded in the house.
Museum of Modern Art (MMoMA) is the first state museum of modern art in Russia, whose collections exclusively contain works of visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. The museum was founded in 1999 with the support of the Moscow Government and the Department of Culture of the capital. The founder and director of MMoMA is Zurab Tsereteli. The permanent collection includes more than 12 thousand art objects: paintings, photographs, sculptures, and installations.
Museum of Moscow Streltsy (archer warriors) “Streletsky Chambers” is a museum of the military history of the Russian Military Historical Society, located in Moscow, in the building of the Titov Chambers, an architectural monument of the 17th-18th centuries. The rightful owners of the museum are archers, to whom the main expositions are dedicated – “Moscow archers” and “Serving people of the Moscow state.”
Museum of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Moscow opened on May 18, 2007. It is located in a house on Kudrinskaya Square, in an apartment that occupied half of the second floor of the wing of the large city estate of Major General A.B. Kazakov.
Museum of Russian Icons is the first in Moscow and the second in Russia’s private museum of Russian icons. It was created on the initiative of an entrepreneur and philanthropist, the owner of the Plaza Development company Mikhail Abramov (1963-2019).
Museum of the Special Purpose Garage of the FSO of Russia is located in the Pavilion №53-54 of VDNKh park, Moscow. The museum presents the legendary cars of the leaders of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.
New Tretyakov Gallery is the second building of the Tretyakov Gallery, located in Moscow on Garden Ring in Muzeon Park. The opening of the first exhibitions took place in 1986. The museum presents art trends of the 20th and 21st centuries: Russian avant-garde, socialist realism, the art of the “severe style,” underground and the latest trends. The museum has a Children’s creative workshop.
Panorama Museum “Battle of Borodino” is a historical museum in Moscow dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812. The museum’s collection includes a panorama of the Battle of Borodino by the artist Franz Roubaud, collections of paintings, drawings, sculptures, arts and crafts and rare books, a numismatic collection and items of equipment and weapons.
Polytechnic Museum (Politékh) is one of the oldest scientific and technical museums in the world and is located in Moscow on Lubyanka Square (also New Square). It was founded in 1872 on the initiative of the Society of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography Lovers with the active participation of Moscow University professors Grigory Shchurovsky, Anatoly Bogdanov and August Davidov. The funds were based on the collections of the Polytechnic Exhibition of 1872.
Rise of the Machines Museum is a museum in Moscow, in the territory of the former Krasny Oktyabr plant on the Bersenevskaya embankment. It’s a fantasy universe populated by the inhabitants of films, TV series, comics and cartoons created by skilled craftsmen from life-size metal.
Roerich Museum is a museum in Moscow dedicated to the life and artistic work of the Roerich family. From 1989 to 2019, it was in the Lopukhins’ estate, built in the 17th-19th centuries. Since 2019, it has been located at VDNKh park in pavilion No. 13 (formerly the Healthcare pavilion).
Russian National Museum of Music (Museum of Music), a museum association that includes branches throughout Moscow. The main building is located on Fadeeva Street, 4.
Shchusev State Museum of Architecture is a museum of the history of architecture in Moscow. The opening took place in 1964 after the merger of the State Museum of Russian Architecture and the Museum of the USSR Academy of Architecture. In addition to exhibition activities, the museum is engaged in scientific research and promotes the restoration of architectural monuments.
Stalin’s bunker No. 42 – Museum of the Cold War. Officially, the bunker is called “GO-42”. The bunker’s design began after the first tests of nuclear weapons in the USSR in 1949-1950. Stalin and the higher leadership of the USSR intended to use the object for shelter from a nuclear strike in Moscow. Before, the countries of the world did not use such shelters. After testing, scientists decided to lay the structure at a depth of more than 50 m. Work began in 1950 and the structure in 1956.
Stanislavski’s Museum is a memorial museum in Moscow dedicated to the life and work of director Konstantin Stanislavski. The institution’s opening occurred in 1948 at the initiative of Stanislavsky’s wife, actress Maria Lilina, and the eldest daughter, Kira Alekseeva. The Museum is housed in a 17th-century mansion on Leontievsky Lane, where the director lived from 1921 to 1938.
Theatrical museum is named after A. A. Bakhrushin (abbreviated by the GCTM named after A. A. Bakhrushin, Bakhrushinsky Museum, the former Literary and Theater Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences). It is a theater museum in Moscow, founded in 1894 by a famous Russian merchant, patron and philanthropist, Alexei Alexandrovich Bakhrushin. The main office is located on Garden Ring on Paveletskaya Square.
Tolstoy Center on Pyatnitskaya-12 is a Leo Tolstoy State Museum department in Moscow. The Center hosts major thematic and stock exhibitions from the museum’s collections, museum programs for children, evening meetings with cultural figures, and concerts.
Tretyakov Gallery is a Moscow art museum founded in 1856 by merchant Pavel Tretyakov. In 1867 the gallery was opened to the public, and in 1892 it was transferred to the ownership of Moscow. At the time of the transfer, the museum’s collection consisted of 1276 paintings, 471 drawings, and ten sculptures by Russian artists, as well as 84 paintings by foreign masters.
Underground Museum in Zaryadye park, Moskvoretskaya Embankment: archaeological site of the Kitai-Gorod Wall
Victory Museum is a federal state institution of culture of the Russian Federation, the main object of the Victory Memorial Park on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow. Solemnly opened by the President of the Russian Federation B.N. Yeltsin on May 9, 1995.
Vadim Zadorozhny Museum of Technology is one of the largest in Europe and the largest in Russia (Moscow) private museum of historical technology. Here you can find the best rare exhibits of the last century: airplanes, cars, motorcycles, armored vehicles, steam locomotives, artillery, small arms and household items. Most of them have 5stars restoration.
Vladimir Mayakovsky State Museum is a Moscow Museum of Vladimir Mayakovsky, founded in 1937 on the initiative of Lily Brik as a library museum. Initially, it was in Gendrikov Lane, where the poet lived with Lilya and Osip Brik from 1926 to 1930. In 1972, the museum was moved to a former communal apartment in Lubyansky Proyezd, where Mayakovsky committed suicide.
Zoological Museum of Moscow State University is one of the largest zoological museums in Russia. It’s located in the center of Moscow, Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street. The foundation’s official date is 1791, when the natural cabinet created at Moscow University was transformed into a natural science museum.
