Tsarist Russia joined Europe’s museum craze a little late, developing a few large museums by the time of the Revolution. The USSR later enthusiastically developed museums as educational and propaganda tools – even pioneering new types of museums. Today, the cities within the former Eastern Bloc contain surprising numbers of these institutions, both private and publically funded, and on nearly every subject imaginable. Many of these museums have survived wars, revolutions, and economic and political collapse, often by innovating ways of preserving, funding, and maintaining their collections. For anyone studying museum science, Russia and other former soviet bloc countries make for fascinating study abroad destinations.
The Latvian National Museum of Art is one of Riga’s oldest and best known art museums. Its permanent collections focus specifically on Latvia’s own national artists and on telling the story of the development of art in Latvia. It also rotates temporary exhibitions that can introduce you to even more striking and more recent Latvian […]
