Museums near The Romanov Chambers

Unusual · since 2007

The Arcade Machines Museum

for enthusiasts

The only museum where the exhibit works: the machine starts on a coin, and that changes the whole way of meeting the object. As a monument of late Soviet daily life it is precise and honest.

Sea Battle, Gorodki, Sniper, Safari — the machines work rather than stand behind glass; and the soda machine with a faceted glass.

1.4 km from here · Rozhdestvenka 12 · ·

· No. 48

Art · since 1934

The only museum of architecture in Russia and one of the few in the world. It holds fragments of demolished buildings — reliefs from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, details of the Sukharev Tower: things that exist nowhere else because the buildings do not.

The enfilade of the Talyzin house with its exhibitions; the Apothecary Office, 17th-century chambers where fragments of demolished Moscow buildings are shown; models of unbuilt projects, including material on the Palace of the Soviets.

1.4 km from here · Vozdvizhenka 5/25 · ·

· No. 53

Art · since 1912

The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

world-class

The Louvre and the Metropolitan hold more originals; what is unique is Tsvetaev’s cast collection — the only large teaching museum of the history of art in the world still intact and still working as intended. In Europe such collections went into storage in the 20th century. Add the Fayum portraits and objects from Schliemann’s Trojan hoards.

The teaching collection of plaster casts after antique and Renaissance sculpture — Tsvetaev’s idea, unmatched for completeness; the Fayum portraits; objects from Priam’s Treasure found by Schliemann at Troy; the Egyptian collection. The French 19th–20th century is in the Gallery at Volkhonka 14, on a separate ticket.

1.6 km from here · Volkhonka 12 · ·

· No. 20

Art · since 1965

Apollinary Vasnetsov Museum

for enthusiasts

Apollinary Vasnetsov’s reconstructions of old Moscow are not painting but scholarship: the artist made archaeological observations, and his views still serve as textbook illustrations. Here they hang in the flat where they were made.

The studio with its original furnishings, and the views of old Moscow — historical reconstructions by which the medieval city is still imagined.

1.8 km from here · Furmanny Lane 6, flats 21–22 (3rd floor) ·

· No. 13

Art · since 1918

The Museum of Oriental Art

outstanding

Western museums of the East were formed by colonial routes; this collection grew out of nationalised private collections and Soviet expeditions. Hence the Central Asian, Caucasian, Buryat and Chukchi sections that London and Paris lack: there the East begins with India and Egypt, here with what lay inside the country and next to it. That is the reason to come.

Central Asian and Caucasian carpets and metalwork transferred from the State Museum Fund; Iranian Qajar painting and tilework; Chinese bronze and porcelain, Japanese prints; a Korean section rare for Russia; Buddhist sculpture of Buryatia and Mongolia.

1.9 km from here · Nikitsky Boulevard 12a · ·

· No. 43

Art · since 1969

The Tropinin Museum

significant

The Moscow portrait of the first half of the 19th century is nowhere else so densely gathered. The value is also in the origin: Vishnevsky’s private collection given to the city, a model of how Russian museums came to be.

Portraits by Vasily Tropinin and his Moscow contemporaries, work by serf artists, Russian Biedermeier. The quiet Zamoskvorechye lane and the house itself are half the pleasure.

2.1 km from here · Shchetininsky Lane 10, bldg 1 · ·

· No. 31

Architecture and estates · since 1965

The Ryabushinsky Mansion

outstanding

The best surviving interior of Moscow Art Nouveau: Shekhtel built the mansion in 1900–1903 and thought it out down to the door handle, and the wave staircase with its jellyfish lamp is the thing for which one comes here instead of any museum of decorative art. What Horta did at the Hôtel Tassel and Mackintosh at the Glasgow School of Art — one hand over the whole building, from plan to fittings — Shekhtel did here, and here it survives with the fittings in place. Upstairs is hidden an Old Believers’ chapel that could not be shown openly, and it has come through. The memorial part — Gorky lived here from 1931 — is markedly weaker than the architecture, and that should be known in advance: one comes for Shekhtel, not for Gorky.

The wave staircase with its jellyfish light. Stained glass and the mosaic frieze of orchids along the façade. The Old Believers’ chapel on the top floor. Gorky’s study and library.

2.2 km from here · Malaya Nikitskaya Street 6/2 ·

· No. 71

Literature · since 1957

The Pushkin Museum on Prechistenka

significant

There is no memorial Pushkin house in Moscow — he did not live here. The value is not authentic walls but a complete age: objects, books and portraits from which the Pushkin era can be reconstructed whole. For relics go to the Moika in Petersburg; for the era, here.

The permanent displays Pushkin and His Age (fifteen rooms of the manor house) and Pushkin’s Fairy Tales; first editions, portraits of his circle, everyday objects of the early 19th century.

2.3 km from here · Prechistenka 12/2 ·

· No. 2

Unusual · since 1894

The Bakhrushin Museum

outstanding

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.

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.

2.3 km from here · Bakhrushina Street 31/12

· No. 66

House museums · since 1911

The Tolstoy Museum on Prechistenka

significant

The largest manuscript fund of any single writer in the world. The value is scholarly: you see how the text was made — Tolstoy rewrote a sentence ten times, and you can watch it happen. For the house he lived in, go to Khamovniki.

Manuscripts in Tolstoy’s hand, first editions, portraits and photographs of the writer and his family. The display follows the books, from Childhood to Resurrection.

2.3 km from here · Prechistenka 11/8 · ·

· No. 7