Moscow museums · Science and nature
Science and nature · since 1907
The Darwin Museum
State Darwin Museum
original name: Государственный Дарвиновский музей
The oldest museum of evolution in Russia, built around an idea rather than around a case of stuffed animals: Kots collected proofs of variability, and the display serves the proof. It cannot match Vienna or Berlin for material, but its way of arguing stands on its own.
Minimum route
2 hours
Founded
1907
Ticket
from ₽550
Today
10:00–18:00
What to see
Early 20th-century taxidermy by Filipp Fedulov, among the finest anywhere; the collection of albinos and melanists gathered by Kots as visible proof of variability; the Living Planet hall.
Minimum route — 2 hours for the essentials
Second floor — Stages in the Knowledge of Living Nature with the historic taxidermy groups; third — Zoogeography and the case of variability with the albinos. Finish with Living Planet.
Reference
About the museum
The oldest museum of evolution in Russia, founded in 1907 by Alexander Kots, who began collecting as a student and gave the museum to the state together with his own collection. About 400,000 items.
The building
Built for the museum in 1974–1995; the exhibition wing added in 2007.
Good to know
The museum was built to demonstrate one idea — evolution — and the display serves that idea rather than systematics. That is rare, and it is what sets it apart from ordinary natural history museums.
What to read
Charles Darwin, “On the Origin of Species” — the museum is built around this book and makes no secret of it.
Getting in
How to get there
Metro Akademicheskaya, then about 700 m on foot
Opening timeschecked on 15 August 2026, open sources
closed for the day
| Mon | closed |
| Tue–Sun today | 10:00–18:00 |
last admission 30 min before closing
Box office closes half an hour early. Closed Mondays. Free entry to the main building every third Thursday of the month.
Ticketschecked on 15 August 2026, open sources
When to go
On weekday mornings in term time the museum belongs to school groups; quieter after 15:00.
Contacts
darwinmuseum.ru · +7 (499) 134-61-24 (tour desk)
Of interest to children
The best museum in Moscow for pre-schoolers: mounted animals, models, hands-on halls. From 4 to the early teens.
Access for visitors with limited mobility
The museum — step-free. Ramps, lifts between floors, accessible toilets, wheelchairs at the door.
Getting there — step-free. Akademicheskaya has no lift and is 700 m away. There is parking and low-floor buses along Vavilova. Moscow metro stations almost never have lifts to the platform, except on the Big Circle line and the MCC. A wheelchair user is better served by the surface buses, which are low-floor across the centre.
Getting there — step-free. Akademicheskaya has no lift and is 700 m away. There is parking and low-floor buses along Vavilova. Moscow metro stations almost never have lifts to the platform, except on the Big Circle line and the MCC. A wheelchair user is better served by the surface buses, which are low-floor across the centre.
If this moved you
In the same city
If the child would not leave the display cases, at Experimentanium they will touch things with their hands. These are different pleasures, and the second is the younger one.
· No. 57