Moscow museums · History
History · since 1991
The Museum of Patrons
The Museum of Entrepreneurs, Patrons and Philanthropists
The only museum about where the Tretyakov Gallery, the Bakhrushin, the Shchukin and Morozov collections came from: about the people who paid for them. The subject runs through our whole list and is gathered nowhere else. What the Courtauld is to Britain — a private eye and a private purse turned into a public institution — the Moscow merchants were to Russia, several times over and within one generation. The rating is honest and not high: this is a private educational centre in an old merchant house, the holding is documentary and small, and there is no free entry at all, only by appointment. Come here after the great museums, having asked yourself whose money they stand on.
Minimum route
1–1.5 hours
Founded
1991
Ticket
from ₽800
What to see
Documents, portraits and belongings of the Moscow merchantry of the nineteenth century. Material on the Tretyakov, Morozov, Bakhrushin and Shchukin dynasties. The house of Ivan Prostyakov, in which the museum lives.
Minimum route — 1–1.5 hours for the essentials
A little over an hour, and only with a tour — there is no other way in.
- 40 minutesthe account of the dynasties and the documents.
- 20 minutesProstyakov’s house itself.
Reference
About the museum
A private centre of research and education on the history of enterprise, patronage and philanthropy. It occupies a nineteenth-century house that belonged to the Moscow businessman and philanthropist Ivan Prostyakov.
The building
A nineteenth-century town house on Donskaya, the merchant Prostyakov’s. Neither grand nor rebuilt — ordinary merchant housing, which suits the subject of the museum.
Good to know
There is no walking in. A tour is booked beforehand by telephone or letter — without that the door is simply shut.
What to read
Natalya Semenova and André Delocque, “The Collector: The Story of Sergei Shchukin and His Lost Masterpieces” — by the collector’s great-grandson: how a Moscow merchant bought Matisse before any museum in Europe would. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.
ISBN 9780300241075
Getting in
How to get there
Metro Shabolovskaya or Oktyabrskaya, about ten minutes on foot.
Opening times
No walk-in visiting: the museum opens for a tour booked in advance. Hours as such were not confirmed.
Tickets
Guided visits only. Groups of 6 to 30: the general tour 800 ₽ per person, concessions 600 ₽; a themed tour 1000 ₽, concessions 800 ₽. For a smaller group the whole tour, admission included, costs 4000 ₽.
from ₽800
by prior booking only
When to go
Whenever you have arranged it. The museum opens for a booked tour, and that is the only way inside.
Contacts
Of interest to children
The subject is adult and documentary. From 12 and only with a tour.
· No. 79