Russian Museum of Ethnography

The Russian Museum of Ethnography is one of the largest and richest museums in Russia. The collections include objects of ethnic culture of more than 150 peoples of Russia and its neighbours. 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. See also: Facing West (Project)