7 MAIN museums in Moscow

Alexandra Guzeva

Jul 11 2023

The capital of Russia is home to several hundred museums: memorial museum apartments, estates, art galleries, exhibition halls and more. One can find a museum for every taste, be it beekeeping, Christmas tree ornaments or Soviet slot machines. However, we’ve selected the ones you simply have to visit.

1. The museums of the Moscow Kremlin

It’s best to start to get acquainted with Moscow with its main part – the Kremlin, the cradle of Russia’s history. You can enjoy the architecture, have a walk around the territory of the Kremlin and adore its towers and palaces, find the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell. You also have to visit the Cathedral Square and enter the three main Kremlin cathedrals: the Cathedral of the Dormition, the Cathedral of the Archangel and the Cathedral of the Annunciation.

If you have time, embark on a journey discovering history. In the treasury museum of the Kremlin Armory, you’ll be greeted with tsar crowns, carriages and coronation dresses, state regalia and orders, as well as different valuables from the tsars’ everyday life, as well as art pieces made of precious metals and gems.

2. The State Historical Museum

When on the Red Square, you’ll be literally surrounded by the buildings of the State Historical Museum. First of all it is, of course, the main red-brick building that looks like a majestic Russian terem. Inside, you can find rare archaeological artifacts of the Stone Age, found on the territory of Russia; weaponry, paintings and items from ancient life; the rarest pieces of work of court jewelers, used by the tsars (We explained in detail what else you can see in the museum here). The museum is also known to hold the most interesting exhibitions.

On the other side of the Red Square stands the Cathedral of the Intercession, better known as St. Basil’s Cathedral. This is also a branch of the State Historical Museum and it’s also 11 churches merged into one!

Apart from this, the institution also includes the Museum of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Chambers of the Romanov Boyars, dedicated to the Moscow boyars of the 16th-17th centuries.

3. The State Tretyakov Gallery

This is one of the most famous museums of Moscow that boast the largest collection of Russian art in the world. The historical building on Lavrushinsky Lane has religious icons and paintings from ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century. The foundation of the museum’s collection is the private collection of merchant Pavel Tretyakov.

The New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val hosts a permanent exhibition of Russian art from the 20th-21st centuries, including avant-garde (‘Black Square’ by Malevich) and Soviet social realism.

All the museum’s buildings also host temporary exhibitions of Russian (and not just Russian) painters. The Museum of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakovs, in the house they were brought up in, as well as the Museum of Viktor Vasnetsov, are also branches of the Tretyakov Gallery.

4. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts

‘Pushkinsky’ – that’s what people call the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, which also has a fine collection of foreign art from ancient times to our day.

We have already talked about what you can see there in detail here. The main building holds a broad collection of replicas of works of art and architectural masterpieces of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Aside from that, the institution possesses a large collection of paintings of old masters (Sandro Botticelli, Rubens, El Greco), artifacts from Ancient Egypt and various archaeological finds from around the world.

Pushkinsky today is an entire complex of museums. It also includes the Gallery of Arts of Europe and America, which holds collections of French impressionists and other western masters of the 19th-20th centuries; it also includes the Memorial Apartment of Pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

5. The Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics

One of the main achievements that was a source of pride for the USSR – and is for modern Russia – is the exploration of space. The opening of this museum at VDNKh was timed for the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight.

The museum also exhibits examples of rocket and space technology: lunar rovers, rocket engines and many other interesting pieces, among which you can find real space suits and personal items of astronauts. Apart from that, the collection of the museum has a lot of art pieces dedicated to space and a full-size model of the Mir space station, which you can enter.

Not far away stands the museum’s branch – the memorial house of academic Sergei Korolev, the leading space designer. By the way, it was his idea to found a museum of cosmonautics.

6. Timiryazev State Biological Museum

Kids will especially like this museum. In it, you can watch the evolution of living beings and see bacteria and microbes; you can also see what extinct animals looked like. You can see rare living plants, as well as paleontological finds and a variety of minerals.

The very building of the museum is also notable – it’s located in the mansion of Pyotr Shchukin of the end of the 19th century, built in the Russian style, looking like a fairy tale terem. Once, there was the Museum of Russian Ancient Art in it.

7. The GULAG History Museum

This place is really important for understanding and reflecting on Soviet history and its entire repressive system (We already wrote in detail about what to expect in this museum here). It hosts a tremendous amount of documents, living testimonies from GULAG prisoners, their personal belongings, everyday life items of a prison camp, as well as other artifacts from the most horrific prisons of the USSR.

The museum’s collection also has paintings, graphics, posters and postcards, sculptures and rare books, dedicated to repressions. The museum is modern and interactive, has a lot of audio and video materials; you can also see the former places of detention in VR.