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Museum Of Decorative And Folk Art
Just beyond the Garden Ring, this museum showcases the centuries-old arts and crafts traditions from all around Russia and the former Soviet republics. It includes all the goodies you might see in souvenir shops or at the Vernisazh market, but these antique pieces represent the crafts at their most traditional and their most authentic.
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Museum Of Oriental Art
For the sake of accuracy, this impressive museum on the Boulevard Ring should probably be called the museum of Asian and African art, as the collection of tens of thousands of pieces represent both continents. It covers an equally vast time period, from ancient times to the 20th century, including painting, sculpture and folk art. The exhibit also includes an interesting feature on Nikolay Rerikh, the Russian artist and explorer who spent several years travelling and painting in Asia.
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Museum Of Private Collections
Next door to the Pushkin, the smaller museum shows off art collections donated by private individuals, many of whom amassed the works during the Soviet era. Exhibits are organised around the collections, each as a whole, and the collectors and donors are featured along with the art. The centrepiece, perhaps, is the collection of the museum's founder, Ilya Silberstein, an accomplished historian of Russian literature and art.
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New Tretyakov Gallery
A second building of the State Tretyakov Gallery is the New Tretyakov Gallery, which houses a brilliant collection of 20th-century art encompassing both socialist realism and the myriad of early 20th-century painting styles, as well as temporary exhibits.
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Ostrovsky Estate-Museum
Aleksandr Ostrovsky is the 19th-century playwright who is often considered the greatest Russian realist writer. This museum is devoted to his life and work: to the Maly Theatre, which he founded and to Zamoskvorechie, where he lived and loved. Some of the writer's personal effects are on display. More intriguing are the paintings and engravings of old Moscow, which featured so prominently in Ostrovsky's work.
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Polytechnical Museum
Occupying the entire block of Novaya ploshchad, this giant museum covers the history of Russian science, technology and industry. Indeed, the museum claims to be the largest science museum, not only in Russia, but also in the world. The permanent exhibits cover just about every aspect of Soviet scientific achievement, from a model of Lomonosov's laboratory to Mendeleev's development of the periodic table to Popov's first radio receiver.
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Pushkin Fine Arts Museum
Moscow's premier foreign art museum is a short distance from the southwestern corner of the Kremlin. The Pushkin Fine Arts Museum is famous for its impressionist and postimpressionist paintings, but also has a broad selection of European works from the Renaissance onward, mostly appropriated from private collections after the revolution. There are also interesting temporary exhibits on regular display.
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Pushkin House-Museum
After Aleksandr Pushkin married Natalya Gonchareva at the nearby Church of the Grand Ascension, they moved to this charming blue house on the old Arbat. The museum provides some insight into the couple's home life - a source of much Russian romanticism. (The lovebirds are also featured in a statue across the street.)
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Pushkin Literary Museum
Housed in a beautiful empire-style mansion dating from 1816, this museum is devoted to Russia's favourite poet's life and work. Personal effects, family portraits, (mostly) reproductions of notes and hand-written poetry provide insight into the work of the beloved bard. The elegant interior re-creates a fancy 19th-century atmosphere, especially the grand ballroom, decorated with mirrors, sconces, chandeliers and heavy drapes.
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Rerikh Museum
Nikolay Rerikh (known internationally as Nicholas Roerich) was a Russian artist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose fantastical artwork is characterised by rich, bold colours, primitive style and mystical themes. This museum, founded by the artist's son Sergei, includes work by father and son, as well as other family heirlooms and personal items.
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Romanov Chambers In Zaryadie
This small but interesting museum is devoted to the lives of the Romanov family, who were mere boyars (nobles) before they became tsars. The house was built by Nikita Romanov, whose grandson Mikhail later became the first tsar of the 300-year Romanov dynasty. Exhibits (with descriptions in English) show the house as it might have been when the Romanovs lived here in the 16th century. Some of the artistic detail - such as the woodwork in the women's quarters - is amazing. Enter from the back.
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Rublyov Museum Of Early Russian Culture And Art
On the grounds of the former Andronikov Monastery, the Rublyov Museum exhibits icons from the days of yore and from the present. Unfortunately, it does not include any work by its namesake artist. It is still worthwhile, not the least for its romantic location. Andrey Rublyov, the master of icon painting, was a monk here in the 15th century; he's buried in the grounds, but no-one knows quite where.
Read more about Rublyov Museum Of Early Russian Culture And Art
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Russian Academy Of Art
Next door to the Tsereteli Gallery, the Russian Academy of Art hosts rotating exhibits in the historic 19th century mansion of the Morozov estate. Despite the institutional-sounding name, this is part of the Tsereteli empire. But it still puts on inspiring and varied shows featuring mostly contemporary Russian and foreign artists.
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Sakharov Museum
Southeast of Chistye Prudy, not far from Kursk Station, is a two-storey house in a small park, containing the Andrei Sakharov Museum. Its displays cover the life of Sakharov, the nuclear-physicist-turned-human-rights advocate, detailing the years of repression in Russia and providing a history of the dissident movement. Temporary expositions cover current human-rights issues. There are signs in English. Watch for a piece of genuine Berlin Wall in front of the building.
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Sculpture Park
Behind and beside the New Tretyakov, the wonderful, moody Sculpture Park is Moscow's most atmospheric spot to indulge in some Soviet nostalgia. Formerly called the Park of the Fallen Heroes, it started as a collection of Soviet statues (Stalin, Dzerzhinsky, a selection of Lenins and Brezhnevs) put out to pasture when they were ripped from their pedestals in the post-1991 wave of anti-Soviet feeling.
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Shalyapin House-Museum
The world-famous operatic singer, Fyodor Shalyapin, lived in this quaint cottage from 1910 to 1920 with his Italian wife and five children. In Russian cultural life, the eminent bass stands alongside icons like Konstantin Stanislavsky and Maksim Gorky. Indeed, his stature is evident from the museum exhibit, which features photographs of the singer in such admirable company, as well as gifts and correspondence that they exchanged.
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State History Museum
The State History Museum is the stunningly ornate red building at the northern end of the square. It has an enormous collection covering the whole of Russian history from the Stone Age on, and has been continually refurbishing its galleries since the 1990s. A joint ticket for the museum and St Basil's Cathedral saves a few roubles at around Rbl230 .
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Tolstoy Estate-Museum
Leo Tolstoy's winter home during the 1880s and 1890s now houses an interesting museum dedicated to the writer's home life. While it's not particularly big or opulent, it is fitting for junior nobility - which Tolstoy was. Exhibits demonstrate how Tolstoy lived, as opposed to his literary influences, which are explored at the Tolstoy Literary Museum. See the salon where Rakhmaninov and Rimsky-Korsakov played piano, and the study where Tolstoy himself wove his epic tales.
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Tolstoy Literary Museum
Opposite the Pushkin Literary Museum, the counterpart Tolstoy Literary Museum claims to be the oldest literary memorial museum in the world (founded in 1911). In addition to the impressive reference library, the museum contains exhibits of manuscripts, letters, and artwork focusing on Leo Tolstoy's literary influences and output. Family photographs, personal correspondence and artwork from the author's era all provide influence into his work.
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Tretyakov Gallery
Tretyakov Gallery is just spectacular, with the world's best collection of Russian icons and a stash of other pre-revolutionary Russian art, especially the 19th-century Peredvizhniki. The collection is based on that of 19th-century industrialist brothers Pavel and Sergey Tretyakov; Pavel was a Peredvizhniki patron.
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Tsereteli Gallery
Housed in the 18th-century Dolgoruky mansion, this is the latest endeavour of the tireless Zurab Tsereteli. The gallery shows how prolific this guy is. The rooms are filled with his often over-the-top sculpture and primitive paintings. If you don't want to spend the time or money exploring the gallery, just pop into the Artist Gallery cafe, which is an exhibit in and of itself.
