Starting in January 2018, the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum held an exhibition titled, “Родная Земля,” (translated as “Homeland,”) celebrating the works of Anatoly Kostovsky. A native Irkutsk painter, Kostovsky graduated from the Irkutsk Art College in 1956 and built his career in realism around the diversity of the Irkutsk region, featuring local people, culture, and […]

The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center presents a history of Russia through the eyes of its Jewish population, highlighting Jewish contributions to Russian history and emphasizing how Jews have suffered through the same tragedies as the rest of Russia (with special attention to events and policies that particularly impact Russia’s Jewish population). The center effectively […]

Recently, Irkutsk’s Dorenberg Art Factory hosted an environmentally focused photo exhibition, showcasing over 100 photographs taken throughout Russia by the country’s most renowned nature photographers.  The exhibit was a part of Primeval Russia (Первозданная Россия), a national nature festival, which is celebrating its 5th anniversary this year. The festival is promoted as a platform for experts […]

The Museum of Soviet Arcade Games (Музей советских игровых автоматов) is a private museum founded by friends Alexander Stakhanov, Alexander Vugman, and Maxim Pinigin in 2007. Initially this was just thier hobby and they made the restored and working games open only by reservation on Wednesdays. However, the games proved wildly popular. Eventually, they had […]

VDNKh (ВДНХ) is a permanent general purpose trade show and amusement/leisure park in Moscow. The park first opened in 1939 with ten pavilions, and has since expanded to over 200 buildings. A friend and I saw two exhibits during our time at VDNKh: the Moscow Mockup (Макет Москвы) and Smart City (Умный город), both new […]

The State Historical Museum, located in the center of Moscow between Red and Manege Squares, was founded in 1872. It features exhibits concerning the Russian territory from the prehistoric ages until the end of the Romanov dynasty. I took a guided English-language tour of this museum through Bridge to Moscow. Although I paid 150 rubles […]

Excursion included in SRAS cultural program for Moscow for Fall, 2017. The GULAG Museum, established in 2001 by writer, historian, and former gulag prisoner A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko, is the only state museum devoted to Stalin’s repressions and the GULAG system. We took a guided tour of this small but informative museum as part of our SRAS […]

Situated sixty-five meters (more than 200 feet) below Moscow’s streets is Bunker 42, also known as “The Secure Command Post ‘Taganskaya,’” a former secret military command center and bomb shelter. Constructed in the 1950s during the height of the Cold War, it was built to serve as an air-defense communication center in the event of […]

Moscow’s Theater Square is not only one of the most beautiful and popular squares, but also one of the oldest. There are three Theaters in total that surround the square—the Bolshoi, the Maly, and the Russian Youth Theaters. At the beginning of the 19th century, the square was named Petrovskaya Square, after the nearby Petrovka […]