Museums near The Tretyakov Gallery

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.

1.5 km from here · Prechistenka 12/2 ·

· No. 2

Art · since 1934

The Museum of Architecture

outstanding

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.

1.5 km from here · Vozdvizhenka 5/25 · ·

· No. 53

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.

1.5 km from here · Bakhrushina Street 31/12

· No. 66

History · since 1872

The Historical Museum

world-class

A collection of material sources on Russian history unmatched for completeness: archaeology, numismatics, arms and manuscripts in one sequence, five million objects. And a rarity of another kind — Sherwood’s fully preserved Russian Revival interior, a monument in itself.

A dugout boat some 3,500 years old; the Mstislav Gospel of the early 12th century; the helmet of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich; a Blaeu globe; personal belongings of Peter the Great. Look up: the halls themselves are painted after Old Russian models and count as an exhibit.

1.6 km from here · Red Square 1 · ·

· No. 6

Art · since 2006

The Museum of the Russian Icon

outstanding

For Ethiopian Christian art it is the only collection in Russia; for the Russian icon it competes with state museums. Add a circumstance almost unheard of anywhere in the world for a collection of this level: admission is free.

The Russian icon of the 14th to 20th century, from Novgorod panels to Old Believer painting; Ethiopian Christian art, the only such collection in Russia; a reconstructed iconostasis and post-Byzantine Greek icons.

1.7 km from here · Goncharnaya 3, bldg 1 · ·

· No. 54

History · since 1997

Museum of Moscow Archaeology

for enthusiasts

A museum built around what cannot be moved: the 16th-century bridge piers stayed where they were and the building went up over them. That method of display is rare, and it is the reason to go down.

The white-stone piers of the Voskresensky Bridge of the 16th to 18th century — the museum was built around them; coin hoards found in the city centre; the everyday things of medieval Moscow.

1.7 km from here · Manezhnaya Square 1a · ·

· No. 15

History · since 1896

Museum of Moscow

significant

A city museum — an ordinary genre in Europe — but the material is unique in scale: a million objects about one city. The value is also the Provision Warehouses by Stasov, a model Empire building rarely accessible from inside.

The permanent display History of Moscow: the archaeology of Moscow soil, town life, plans and views of the city by century. And the Provision Warehouses themselves, an Empire monument after Vasily Stasov.

1.8 km from here · Zubovsky Boulevard 2, bldg 7 · ·

· No. 56

Literature · since 1934

The Dahl Literary Museum

significant

The only museum built not around a single name but around literature as a process. Hence its strength — comparisons impossible in a house museum, and a fund of 700,000 items that makes such comparisons possible.

The permanent display Zubovsky 15: a house of science, literature and art, and the exhibitions on 20th-century Russian letters.

1.8 km from here · Zubovsky Boulevard 15, bldg 1 · ·

· No. 8

History · since 1991

The Museum of Patrons

for enthusiasts

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.

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.

1.9 km from here · Donskaya Street 9 · ·

· No. 79

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.

2.1 km from here · Nikitsky Boulevard 12a · ·

· No. 43