6 museums in which you can FEEL the Russian spirit (PHOTOS)
Welcome to the past: in these places, time seems to have stopped!
‘Po sussekam’, Moscow
Do you like tea with ‘baranki’ (mini crunchy bagels)? Then you should visit the ‘Po sussekam’ Museum – every visit there ends with a tea party. There is no exposition in the usual sense, no showcases and inscriptions stating: “Do not touch with your hands”. On the contrary, you can study Russian life by examining the exhibits up close. You can try to grind grain in millstones or iron linen with a special device called a ‘rubel’, try on a pester – a birch bark backpack or weave a beautiful table cloth on a loom.
‘House of Suranovs’, Kolomna
In Kolomna, near Moscow, tourists find themselves in the past: you can spend a whole day there and, by the evening, notice with surprise that you are not actually in the 19th century, but in the 21st! This museum is dubbed the “house of living history”. The two-story merchant mansion of the 18th-19th centuries belonged to the Suranov family, who were engaged in the production of candles and soap and also traded in perfumes and haberdashery.
Today, accompanied by one of its “inhabitants”, you can walk through the rooms of the mansion and see what its “residents” do. Soon, the museum will launch a full immersion format – it will be possible to live on the estate. However, there are a few conditions: no phones or modern clothes, only historical ones. And it is also necessary to follow the daily routine of the inhabitants of the house.
House-Museum of Viktor Vasnetsov, Moscow
In 1891, the artist Viktor Vasnetsov decided to build a house in Moscow based on his own sketches using the money he received for painting the Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev. His source of inspiration were Russian huts. Three years later, without waiting for the construction to be completed, he and his family moved into his little tower.
The interior was also designed by the artist. The studio is almost a portal to a magical world: In it are the artist`s famous paintings from his ‘Poem of Seven Fairy Tales’ cycle.
Museum of Wooden Architecture and Peasant Life, Suzdal
A large village stands on the high bank of the Kamenka River. More precisely, it is an open-air museum, where wooden buildings of the 18th-19th centuries have been collected.
You can peek into peasant huts, learn what ancient churches looked like, look at wooden mills and walk along the village street.
Muranovo Estate Museum, Moscow Region
Poet Yevgeny Baratynsky loved these places and dedicated poems to them, calling Muranovo a place where “the soul flies”. In 1842, he built a house there according to his own drawings. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, it was preserved in its original form.
Even today, Muranovo remains an island of tranquility: located on the bank of the Talitsa River, it is ideal for leisurely walks. There are many outbuildings on the territory, as well as a small Church of the Savior of Nerukotvorny, built in 1878.
Museum of Peasant Life, Moscow Region
In 1921, Vladimir Lenin met with the local population in the house of the Shulgin peasants in Gorki Leninskiye near Moscow and told them about the plan to electrify the country. For a long time, the museum of the leader of the world revolution worked there and, in the 1900s, the house was turned into a museum of peasant life of the late 19th - early 20th century.
