Moscow museums · Unusual
Unusual · since 1894
The Bakhrushin Museum
The Bakhrushin Theatre Museum
A collection begun in 1894 by one private man and grown into the largest theatre collection in the world — so the museum reckons it, and it is hard to dispute: a million and a half items. Its value is completeness: Russian theatre can be followed here in sequence, from the serf stage to the present, rather than by isolated stars. The V&A holds the national theatre archive of Britain and shows it magnificently; the difference is that there the Russian line is a guest and here it is the whole subject. The designs by Golovin, Bakst, Korovin and Exter are, incidentally, first-rate painting — they merely happen to be filed under theatre. The main building reopened after a long restoration in 2024, and the make-up of the permanent display is worth checking before setting out.
Minimum route
1.5–2 hours
Founded
1894
What to see
Designs for sets and costumes by Golovin, Bakst, Korovin, Exter and Tatlin. Costumes and possessions of the great actors. Stage models. The archives of theatres and directors. Bakhrushin’s own house, built for the collection.
Minimum route — 1.5–2 hours for the essentials
An hour and a half.
- 20 minutesthe Bakhrushin house: the interiors and the story of the collector.
- 40 minutestheatre painting and design.
- 30 minutescostumes, models, actors’ things.
Reference
About the museum
Founded by the merchant Alexei Bakhrushin in 1894 as a private collection and handed to the Academy of Sciences in 1913. It is now a museum quarter of several buildings around the original house.
The building
Bakhrushin’s house in the Gothic taste was built by Karl Hippius in 1896 — a house fitted from the start to a collection rather than to a life.
Good to know
The holding is beyond comparison larger than what is shown: the halls carry a fraction of a per cent of the store, and every exhibition opens something new. The branches — the Yermolova, Shchepkin and Ostrovsky houses — are separate addresses and separate tickets.
What to read
Jane Pritchard (ed.), “Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909–1929” — the V&A catalogue: the designs that made the Ballets Russes were drawn by the same hands whose sheets hang here. London: V&A Publishing, 2010.
ISBN 9781851778355
Getting in
How to get there
Metro Paveletskaya, about five minutes on foot.
When to go
Weekdays. After the restoration the museum became a quarter of several buildings, and there is no time for all of it at once — better to choose one and not hurry.
Contacts
bakhrushinmuseum.ru · +7 499 484-77-77
Of interest to children
Theatre without theatre is hard to explain to a child: this is a museum for those who already go to plays. From 9.
· No. 66