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.
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 […]
