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.
The Kunstkamera is a distinctive blue building set along the Nevsky on Vasilievskiy Island. Among its many claims to fame, the most prominent is that the Kunstkamera was the first museum created for the public in Petersburg; it was established by Peter the Great to house his collection of curiosities. Peter the Great was a […]