Moscow museums
Not every museum in the city, but those that can open new worlds, point to genuine masterpieces, sharpen the mind and move the soul. Every entry carries our own rating of the collection, what matters most here, a minimum route to the essentials, when to come to avoid the crowds and what it costs. Every entry is dated with its last check.
Victor Borisov-Musatov. The Harmony of the Image
Over 140 works from twenty collections: The Pool, The Emerald Necklace and studies almost never shown. Russian Symbolism is one of the summits at which art lifts a person beyond himself; a retrospective this full comes once in a generation.
Work by the sculptor who carved quebracho and algarrobo: in his hands wood holds shapes impossible in marble.
Over seven hundred objects: sculpture and painting of Russian Buddhism, almost none of it shown before. More than a hundred sculptures were conserved for the opening.
More than 150 sheets that almost never leave the store: pastel sheds under light and movement and is rarely shown. Halls 49–54.
The first large exhibition of the new Kadashevskaya wing: the flower in Russian art from the icon to the 20th century.
The New Tretyakov
Malevich’s Black Square, Petrov-Vodkin’s Bathing of a Red Horse, work by Kandinsky, Chagall, Goncharova and Larionov, the model of Tatlin’s Tower. Next door: the Muzeon park of dismantled Soviet monuments.
The State Tretyakov Gallery
Ivanov’s The Appearance of Christ Before the People in its own hall; Surikov’s Boyarynya Morozova and Morning of the Streltsy Execution; Repin’s Ivan the Terrible and His Son; Serov’s Girl with Peaches; Vasnetsov’s Bogatyrs; the icon halls. Rublev’s Trinity is no longer here: it was handed to the Church in 2023.
Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center
The building itself — the Bakhmetevsky garage of 1926–1927, one of Konstantin Melnikov’s principal works with steel structures by Vladimir Shukhov; the Café on Basseynaya, a reconstruction of shtetl life.
Mikhail Abramov Museum of the Russian Icon
The Russian icon of the 14th to 20th century, from Novgorod panels to Old Believer painting; Ethiopian Christian art, the only such collection in Russia; a reconstructed iconostasis and post-Byzantine Greek icons.
Museum of Russian Impressionism
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Konstantin Korovin, Valentin Serov, Igor Grabar, Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky. The building is a converted cylindrical flour store of the Bolshevik factory — a rare case of industry turned into a museum.
Tretyakov Gallery. Kadashevskaya Embankment wing
There is no permanent collection — this is an exhibition wing. See the atrium, open without a ticket, and the façades: they carry reproductions of 34 works by Russian artists.
Museum of Moscow
The permanent display History of Moscow: the archaeology of Moscow soil, town life, plans and views of the city by century. And the Provision Warehouses themselves, an Empire monument after Vasily Stasov.
State Darwin Museum
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.
The Manege Central Exhibition Hall
The building itself: a column-free hall spanned by timber trusses of almost 45 metres, calculated by the engineer Agustín de Betancourt — a rare monument of engineering.
Experimentanium Museum of Entertaining Science
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Halls of mechanics, optics, acoustics and electricity; a mirror maze; science shows to a timetable.
We give the rating ourselves and answer for it: it is about the value of the collection, not the size of the building, the visitor numbers or the fame of the name.
- world-class
- In the same rank as the world's leading museums.
- outstanding
- A strong collection: worth setting aside a day for.
- significant
- There are things here worth seeing.
- for enthusiasts
- Of interest to those already drawn to the subject.
- niche
- Valuable to a narrow circle, without wider recognition.
Checked on 15 August 2026 — against museum websites and open sources. Every entry carries its own date of checking and what it was checked against. A price we could not confirm we say so, rather than leaving the old one.
Time needed is for the essentials, along our minimum route, without the café, the shop or the cloakroom queue. Going through the whole museum almost always takes longer.
The photographs come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences; the author and the licence are given under each one.
18 May is International Museum Day (since 1977), and the night of 17–18 May is Museum Night. On those days museums keep different hours and are often free.
We answer for every figure and date on these pages. If a museum has changed its hours or its prices, if a link has died, or if you think a museum is missing from the list — write to us. We will correct it and set a new date of checking.