State Darwin Museum?Why this museumThe oldest museum of evolution in Russia, built around an idea rather than around a case of stuffed animals: Kots collected proofs of variability, and the display serves the proof. It cannot match Vienna or Berlin for material, but its way of arguing stands on its own.
Getting there — step-free. Akademicheskaya has no lift and is 700 m away. There is parking and low-floor buses along Vavilova. Moscow metro stations almost never have lifts to the platform, except on the Big Circle line and the MCC. A wheelchair user is better served by the surface buses, which are low-floor across the centre.2 hours
Early 20th-century taxidermy by Filipp Fedulov, among the finest anywhere; the collection of albinos and melanists gathered by Kots as visible proof of variability; the Living Planet hall.
Second floor — Stages in the Knowledge of Living Nature with the historic taxidermy groups; third — Zoogeography and the case of variability with the albinos. Finish with Living Planet.
| Mon | closed |
| Tue–Sun | 10:00–18:00 |
Reference
The oldest museum of evolution in Russia, founded in 1907 by Alexander Kots, who began collecting as a student and gave the museum to the state together with his own collection. About 400,000 items.
The building. Built for the museum in 1974–1995; the exhibition wing added in 2007.
Good to know. The museum was built to demonstrate one idea — evolution — and the display serves that idea rather than systematics. That is rare, and it is what sets it apart from ordinary natural history museums.