Tsarist Russia joined Europe’s museum craze a little late, developing only a few large museums by the time of the Revolution. The USSR later enthusiastically developed museums as educational and propaganda tools. Today, the cities of Eurasia contain surprising numbers of these institutions, both private and publicly 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 history, museum science, literature, art, or nearly any other subject, these places make for fascinating travel and study abroad destinations.
Around any given corner in St Petersburg one can expect to find a museum that reflects the city’s unique cultural history. In particular, St Petersburg has a wide array of literary house museums – museums that detail the life of an author inside an actual former home of that author. These are particularly interesting in […]