Rus

«the Museum’s sites»

Kolomenskoye Kolomenskoye is one of the most ancient places of human habitation in the area of modern Moscow... Izmailovo In 1676 – 1678, a wooden tsar’s mansion was built at the Tsar’s Court, on the Izmailovsky Island. Lefortovo Park and Palace Ensemble is a unique imperial residence, which keeps an original lay-out of the times of Peter the Great... Ljublino Ljublino, first mentioned in documents of XVI-th century, is one of the most interesting historical territories...
Collection of Icons in Kolomenskoye
Archaeological objects collection in Kolomenskoye

«Collections of the Museum-Reserve»

The history of the Museum’s collection begins in the 1920s and is connected with the name of its first Director Peter D. Baranovsky. At the beginning of the terrible period when Moscow architectural monuments were destroyed, the Museum’s staff moved art objects to the depository to save them. Iconostases frameworks, books and manuscripts, floor stone slabs, metal doors and window bars, glazed tiles and limestone decorative elements from churches were carried on horses to Kolomenskoye. Today, the Museum stock numbers more than 120,000 museum objects, among them are monuments of archaeology, history, culture and art. They range from late Stone Age objects up to examples of facing ceramic plates of the Soviet period (XX-th century). The majority of exhibits date back to the Middle and New Age. More than 3,000 museum objects make part of the permanent exposition.

Types of the permanent collection exhibits and areas they embrace:

  • Collection of icons;
  • Archaeological objects;
  • Ethnographic objects;
  • Glazed tiles;
  • Numismatic objects;
  • Carved and gilded wood;
  • Rare books, manuscript and old printed books;
  • Metal;
  • Graphic art;
  • Fabric, bone, leather;
  • Photos, audio and video records.

Old Russian painting is represented by the Museum’s unique collection of XVI – XIX-th - century icons, the majority of which come from Moscow and Moscow region churches and cloisters destroyed in the 1920-1930s. One of the most valuable part of the collection consists of XVI – XVIII-th - century icons delivered to the Museum in 1939 from the abolished Solovetsky monastery.

The Museum’s collection of building ceramic materials (bricks, facing plates, tiles, and glazed tiles, the latter constituting the majority of the collection) comes to more than 150,000 units of storage and is by right considered one of the best in Russia. The collection permits to see in full scope the history of Russian tile art, beginning from its origin to the present day. The geography of the collection is as broad as the history. Here one can see tiles from Yaroslavl, Ustyug, Vologda, Kaluga, Vladimir, and other well-known Russian centres, as well as examples of European and Oriental facing ceramic elements. Yet, Moscow tiles that occupy a particular place in the Russian art culture, make the biggest part of the collection.

Manuscript and old printed books, rare books. This collection consists of about 2,700 objects, including manuscript documents and books from Nikolo-Ugreshsky and Nikolo-Perervensky monasteries, as well as a large number of churches of Moscow districts that used to be Moscow region settlements (Zyuzino, Kapotnya, Borisovo, Izmailovo, Sofrino) and some old Moscow churches. This part of stock houses richly illustrated manuscripts of Old Belivers, including manuscripts from Old Believers’ chapels situated in Kolomenskoye. The Museum’s collection of books is still rapidly increasing thanks to rare examples dating back to the XVI-th – XIX-th centuries. Old printed books the oldest of which came out in the third quarter of XVI-th century, make the core of the collection.

© The Moscow State Integrated Art and Historical, Architectural and Natural Landscape Museum-Reserve.
Address: 39, Andropova avenue, 115487 Moscow, Russia
Tel: 007 (499) 612-52-17, Fax: 007 (499) 612-11-55