Moscow museums · Science and nature
Science and nature · since 1937
The Palaeontological Museum
The Orlov Palaeontological Museum
The largest palaeontological collection in the country and one of the largest anywhere, and its chief part was dug by its own people: the dinosaur skeletons were brought from the Gobi by the Soviet-Mongolian expeditions of the 1940s and 1970s. Roy Chapman Andrews found the Flaming Cliffs for New York in the 1920s and had to leave; the field was worked out afterwards from this side, and the results stayed here. Neither South Kensington nor the American Museum has Mongolian material of this weight — they have their own digs and their own regions. The 1987 building was raised for this collection and is a monument in itself. What is not here is the fairground: this is a museum of bones, and a dinosaur is evidence rather than an attraction.
Minimum route
1.5–2 hours
Founded
1937
Ticket
from ₽600
Today
10:00–18:00
What to see
Skeletons of Tarbosaurus and Saurolophus from the Gobi. A mammoth from the Arctic coast. Panels and reliefs made for the museum by animal painters — a rare case in which the fitting-out of a museum is itself a work. The Precambrian and Palaeozoic halls, which popular museums usually do not have at all.
Minimum route — 1.5–2 hours for the essentials
An hour and a half.
- 15 minutesthe entrance hall and the relief wall.
- 25 minutesPrecambrian and Palaeozoic: where everything begins and what is usually walked past.
- 35 minutesthe Mesozoic hall: the Gobi dinosaurs, for which one comes.
- 20 minutesCenozoic and mammals, the mammoth.
Reference
About the museum
Descended from Peter’s Kunstkamera; as the museum of the Palaeontological Institute it has stood on its own since 1937. The present building was put up in 1987 expressly for the collection.
The building
Built in 1987 to the design of Yury Platonov: dark brick, closed courtyards, ceramic reliefs and wrought grilles made by artists for this museum. One of the few late Soviet museum buildings that has not dated.
Good to know
The museum is far from the centre and the journey takes longer than it looks. The display is arranged by time rather than by spectacle: come only for the dinosaurs and half the halls will seem superfluous — and that half is the point.
What to read
Michael Novacek, “Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs” — the Gobi from the other side of the same desert, by a palaeontologist of the American Museum: it explains what these expeditions cost and why the Mongolian material matters. New York: Anchor, 1997.
ISBN 9780385477758
Getting in
How to get there
Metro Tyoply Stan, then by bus or fifteen minutes on foot along Profsoyuznaya.
Opening timeschecked on 16 August 2026, the museum website
closed for the day
| Mon, Tue | closed |
| Wed–Sun today | 10:00–18:00 |
last admission 45 min before closing
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Last admission 17:15.
Ticketschecked on 16 August 2026, the museum website
Full 600 ₽, concessions 300 ₽. Non-commercial photography free.
from ₽600
tickets online
Audio guidechecked on 17 August 2026, the museum website
the museum's own app · included in the ticket
languages: Russian not in your language
Free, on the izi.TRAVEL platform: your own phone and the app are needed. The first stage is done — part of the display is voiced.
When to go
Weekdays in term time: at weekends there are school parties and the Mesozoic hall hums. In summer the first hours after opening are freest.
Contacts
Of interest to children
The best museum in Moscow for a child taken with dinosaurs: the skeletons are real and stand at full height. From 5.
· No. 64