The Russian Museum of Ethnography
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Themes

Traditional agriculture | Traditional crafts and trades | Traditional house and family way of life | Traditional costume | Feasts and rituals

About museum

The Russian Museum of Ethnography is the museum of the peoples of Russia. There are more than 150 peoples speaking various languages, which lived on the territory of Russia for centuries and finally engrained there.

Such museum was a desirable object in thoughts of many Russians tsars and Emperors Alexander III was dreaming of the museum where he could place the Russia: treasures of national and folk culture, arts and crafts, and the main treasure - its peoples in an indispensable image and variations of the ethnic cultures.

The Emperor Nickolas II, Alexander's III heir, who came to the throne father's dream by establishing the Russian Museum and erecting the Palace of the Peoples - the Russian Museum of Ethnography.

This Museum today is a great scientific and research center which contains in its collections half a million of exhibits and photographs of the native peoples of peoples of Russian. Inevitable fate of the Museum articles if their being in captivity of the Museum collection. But was it ever possible to capture folk spirit embodied in objects, symbols, signs of ethnic and folk culture?

The Russian Museum of Ethnography carries out its museum policy with absolutely clear understanding of the nature of its collections - ethnic collections of culture of the Russian peoples. The Museum not only preserves the past but brings it back to life, gives back to the peoples lost in Gulags of history and the unclaimed ethno cultural past of Russia in all its inmost details.

After the scientific research and conservation work the museum articles become more than just material pieces that form an exhibition portfolio of the museum and having left their Motherland, they deliver knowledge about the Russian peoples abroad.

The range of demand for the ethno-cultural information contained in the objects of traditional culture is extremely huge. Looking for the self-identity, interest in life of their ancestors the offspring want to find the answer not only in the contemporary multinational Russia but also abroad.

The Museum is ready to discuss various possibilities of organization ethnographic exhibitions from its collections as a bank of the ethno cultural data the value of that cannot be estimated.

During recent years the exhibition portfolio was supplemented by new exhibits that the Museum is pleased to represent to any partners concerned  

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From January of 2013 the opening hours were changed

01 January 2013
Every Tuesday of each month our museum is opened for you from 10.00 to 21.00. Ticket office works till 20.00 

Programme of Tuesday Evenings in May

13 May 2013
 

10.04 - 30.06.2013. Exhibition "Treasures of the Don Steppe". From the Rostov regional museum of local history collection.

11 April 2013
The exhibition acquaints visitors with the archeological part of the collection from the Rostov regional museum of local history. The collection includes more than 120 000 items, which were discovered in different Don burial mounds and ancient settlements in different historical periods - from Paleolithic age to medieval times.  

22.03 - 21.04.2013 Boris Molchanov “The light of a distant star”

26 March 2013
 

25.02 - 30.04.2013 Finno-Ugric world within the L.L. Kapitza photographs.

26 February 2013
Photo exhibition is dedicated to the scientist, ethnographer and the research fellow of the Ethnographical department of the Russian museum. Academic heritage of the L.L. Kapitza includes ethnographic collections on Finno-Ugric peoples of the Europe North - the Saams, the Karels and the Komi, which were gathered in 1910 - 1920ss on the territory of the Kola Peninsula, Karelia and the Komi Republic.  

Programme of Tuesday Evenings in March

05 March 2013
 

Ethnic music in the Ethnography museum.

19 February 2013
On the second Tuesday of each month in the hall of the Russian museum of Ethnography the concerts of the modern folk groups will be held. 

The first peer-reviewed journal “Museum. Traditions. Ethnicity.”

21 December 2012
We are honored to present the first volume of the first peer-reviewed journal "Museum. Traditions. Ethnicity." published by the Russian museum of Ethnography. The journal considers problems of studying of ethnic history and ethnic traditions, phenomena of ethnicity and inter-ethnic contacts, and also museum activity on studying, preserving and presentation of the ethnographical collections. 

19.05.2012. Exhibition "The Peoples of Southern Caucasus”

10 July 2012
According to experts' opinion the Southern Caucasus, which traditional culture is represented on the new exhibition, is one of the most fascinating region of the world. The myths about Prometheus, the Argonauts' voyage, and rebirth of life after the Deluge, and many others are linked to this region. The "ethnographic reality" recording by researchers in the Southern Caucasus and shown on this exhibition have the deepest historical roots. 

Central Asia and Kazakhstan exhibition

26 June 2009
A new permanent exhibition dedicated to the culture of the peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan in the 19th - early 20th centuries opened at the Russian Museum of Ethnography. 

Russian traditional costume

22 June 2009
The new permanent exhibition "Russian Traditional Costume was opened to public in December 27 2008. It includes 32 women's, men's, and children's costumes, some details, accessories, and ornaments, dated by 19-early 20 centuries. They all are authentic objects of Russian people's daily, which came to museum upon the ethnographic expeditions, organized in 1902- 2000 гг.  

The First Ethnographic Exhibition

28 November 2007
The exhibition displayed a total of about 300 mannequins in traditional costumes, 450 sets and articles of clothing, 1,100 household objects, as well as musical instruments, scale models of structures and implements, lubok popular prints and 1,600 photographs 
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