New museums regularly open in Russia. The emergence of new complexes and exhibitions testifies to the dynamic development of the national cultural infrastructure and the desire to rethink traditional approaches. New cultural spaces add to the list of attractions and actively integrate into the life of cities and regions, becoming points of attraction for people of different generations. New spaces strive for dialogue with the contemporary viewer, implement bold interactive projects and introduce multimedia solutions. The editorial team of idemvmuzei.ru compiled a Top 10 of museums that opened in 2024.
1. State Tretyakov Gallery, Kadashyovskaya Embankment building
Photo: tretyakovgallery.ru
The Tretyakov Gallery building on Kadashyovskaya Embankment houses modern exhibition and display spaces covering more than 35,000 sq. m, restoration workshops for painting, graphics and sculpture, as well as a scientific photo archive. The building's open atrium, accessible from the embankment side, is a multifunctional public space. The complex includes a souvenir and printed products shop, ticket offices, a tour bureau, and dining areas. Cloakrooms and restrooms for visitors are located on the underground floor. Of particular interest is the building's architectural design — reproductions of 34 works by Russian artists are placed on the facades, which fall within the UNESCO World Heritage protection zone.
2. ArtDynamics Museum in Moscow
Photo: official museum group on VKontakte
ArtDynamics is a new-format museum that combines art and technology in a single concept and is located in the ARMA space. The innovative ArtDynamics studio specializes in projects in art visualization and art-robotics in the entertainment sphere. Exhibitions and projects organized by the studio have resonated strongly both among contemporary art enthusiasts and commercial companies.
3. Underground Moscow Museum
Photo: podzemnayamoskva.ru
The museum is located in a Soviet-era civil defense shelter. Most exhibits can be touched, and with a guide you can operate many original pieces of Soviet equipment yourself. The museum halls are divided into three zones. In the 'Underground Moscow' zone there are exhibits and visual materials about the city's man-made underground structures: from sewers and quarries to bunkers and the metro. In the 'Civil Shelter' zone you can see preserved equipment from the former 1972-built bomb shelter, as well as several hundred exhibits related to underground protection of the civilian population. The 'Secret Bunker' zone contains artifacts from the most interesting and technically equipped underground sites — Soviet protected special facilities for government communications and wartime command.
4. F. V. Sychkov Art Gallery in Penza
Photo: minkult.pnzreg.ru
The F. V. Sychkov Art Gallery is located in a small cozy building in the historic center of the village of Narovchat. The gallery has three exhibition halls. The first hall contains reproductions of paintings by Fedot Vasilyevich Sychkov, an honored artist of the RSFSR and a native of the village of Kochelaevo in the Narovchat district of Penza Governorate. Guides tell the artist's biography and creative path — he painted more than 600 works in his life — and present his works on display in the gallery. Visitors can also watch the film 'Fedot Sychkov. The Artist of Joy.' The other halls exhibit works by well-known masters K. A. Veshchilov, K. F. Yuon, N. P. Bogdanov-Belsky, several Penza artists including P. S. Aniskin, as well as sculptural works by M. I. Feokritova and V. B. Kurochkin, and examples of the famous Abashevo and Dymkovo toys.
5. F. I. Shalyapin Music Museum
Photo: ufa.mk.ru
The F. I. Shalyapin Music Museum is the first musical-theatrical museum in the Republic of Bashkortostan dedicated to a world-renowned figure. The museum is located in the heart of the capital, in an architectural monument of old Ufa — the restored Solovyov merchants' mansion. This magnificent and cozy late 19th-century building is an example of wooden architecture and part of the former urban estate. In the museum's elegant halls, interiors of the late 19th–early 20th centuries in the Art Nouveau style have been recreated. It was on the Ufa stage in 1890 that the professional debut of the brilliant opera artist and singer, who later conquered the world's best stages, took place. Later F. I. Shalyapin celebrated anniversaries and ceremonial dates, counting the years he spent on stage from those memorable Ufa tours.
6. Art and Facts Museum (MAF)
Photo: spbmuzei.ru
Art and Facts Museum (MAF) is the first museum in Russia created with the participation of artificial intelligence. It's a new word in the city's cultural life. Want to hold a real meteorite in your hands? Or try to pull a gold bar out of a cash vault? MAF's collection includes unique exhibits from around the world: a LEGO gold brick, a megalodon jaw, a tiny bicycle and much more. An interactive secret archive is replenished almost weekly. The exhibition area is 1,200 m² of experiences. The museum is located in the VOKZAL 1853 space, in the historic building of the old railway station. After the tour you can grab a bite at one of 70+ nearby places.
7. Sredizemye at Molchanovka
Photo: press service of the Molchanov-Sibirsky Library
The new museum in Irkutsk is about place, literature and words. It is a collection of prisms, optics and lenses of perception. Here every visitor can change the embedded meanings. The museum is located in Molchanovka, on the third floor of the South Tower.
8. Museum of Vintage Computer Technology
Photo: Zen channel 'Technosphere. Russia'
The museum space is a joint project of IT company Bitblaze and collector Denis Efremov. The collection includes more than 30 Soviet computers, monitors, keyboards, joysticks and calculators from the 1970s–1980s. For example, the exhibition features the Soviet personal computers Elektronika, Iskra and Agat. The museum also displays foreign-made computers from the 1990s and examples of modern devices using Russian Elbrus and Baikal processors developed by the company over the past ten years.
9. SyrKultProsvet in Uglich
Photo: syrkultprosvet.ru
SyrKultProsvet is a center of industrial and gastronomic tourism with no analogue in Russia. Visitors are offered a unique opportunity to learn not only about the history of cheesemaking, but also to be inside the factory and see modern cheese production according to domestic recipes that were developed in the Yaroslavl region as far back as the 19th century. In the tasting room, under the guidance of a cheese sommelier, you can enjoy a collection of traditional and organic cheeses. In the interactive space — the former milk-receiving building — you can create your own virtual cheese packaging in the lab, watch themed films in the cinema hall, and take souvenir photos in an original photo zone.
10. Konfektoria Sweets Museum in Perm
Photo: official museum group on VKontakte
The museum was created with the participation of the Perm confectionery factory. Its exhibition displays 19th-century tin boxes used to store tea, cocoa and coffee, Soviet scales, vintage candy wrappers from the Sudoplatov factory and authentic molds for pressed gingerbreads.
