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.
Five minutes away from Red Square, between a few small churches, stands the old palace of the famous Romanov boyars. Built by the brother-in-law of Ivan the Terrible and grandfather of Tsar Mikhail Romanov in the sixteenth century, it housed the family until 1613 when Mikhail Romanov became Tsar. After the Romanovs moved to the […]