Museum of Private Collections

Arbat & Khamovniki


Next door to the main building of the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, this smaller museum shows off art collections donated by private individuals, many of whom amassed the works during the Soviet era. Exhibits are organized around the collections, each as a whole, with the details of the collectors displayed alongside the art. The centrepiece is the collection of the museum’s founder, Ilya Silberstein, an accomplished historian of Russian literature and art.

During the construction of the new museum complex (expected completion in 2019), the Museum of Private Collections is closed and the building is being used for temporary exhibits only.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Arbat & Khamovniki attractions

1. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

0.06 MILES

This is Moscow’s premier foreign-art museum, split over three branches and showing off a broad selection of European works, including masterpieces from…

2. Glazunov Gallery

0.08 MILES

This elaborate Russian Empire–style mansion, opposite the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, houses a gallery dedicated to the work of Soviet and post-Soviet…

3. 19th & 20th Century Art Gallery

0.1 MILES

This branch of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts contains a famed assemblage of French Impressionist works, based on the collections of two well-known…

4. Shilov Gallery

0.13 MILES

‘What is a portrait? You have to attain not only an absolute physical likeness…but you need to express the inner world of the particular person you are…

5. Vladimir I Statue

0.18 MILES

In 2016 Vladimir Putin unveiled a new monument dedicated to his namesake Vladimir I, ruler of Kyivan Rus from 980 to 1015. At 17m high, the massive statue…

6. Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

0.21 MILES

This opulent and grandiose cathedral was completed in 1997 – just in time to celebrate Moscow's 850th birthday. The cathedral’s sheer size and splendour…

7. Borovitskaya Tower

0.23 MILES

Use the Kremlin entrance at Borovitskaya Tower if you intend to skip the churches and visit only the Armoury or Diamond Fund.

8. Dom na Naberezhnoy Museum

0.24 MILES

The big ‘House on the Embankment’ on Bolotny Island is a historic building, once home to many old Bolsheviks and Civil War heroes, as well as artists,…