In 1896 an All‑Russian Exhibition was held, accelerating the industrial and cultural development of cities in the Russian Empire. Among the cities affected by this historic event, Nizhny Novgorod occupies a special place: it was in that year that several of the city's significant museums opened. For those planning to visit Nizhny Novgorod, we have compiled a top‑5 list of museums worth visiting.
Arsenal
Photo: Yuri Goryachev
The Arsenal of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin was built in the mid‑19th century by order of Nicholas I. It stands next to the Powder Tower and, together with the House of the Military Governor and the Transfiguration Cathedral (lost in 1929), is part of the ceremonial ensemble. The Arsenal stored weapons and infantry uniforms; in Soviet times it housed the cartographic archive of the Ministry of Defense. From 2006 to 2015 the Arsenal underwent a major restoration led by architect Evgeny Assa and restorer Alexander Epifanov. During the restoration about forty burials, a hoard of silver coins and fragments of the Kremlin's wooden walls were discovered. In 2020 the Arsenal was transformed into an exhibition space and transferred to the administration of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. It now regularly hosts exhibitions of Russian and foreign art and each year hosts the presentation of the 'Innovation' prize.
Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum
The art museum was opened for the 1896 All‑Russian Exhibition. In 1992 the museum moved into the former House of the Military Governor dating from the mid‑19th century. The main building displays a collection of Russian art, including icons and lesser‑known paintings by Semiradsky, Bryullov, Aivazovsky, Kustodiev and Roerich, as well as canvases by the Peredvizhniki and avant‑garde artists such as Rodchenko, Malevich, Kandinsky, Goncharova and Larionov. In the museum's second building — the former mansion of merchant Dmitry Sirotkin — the collection of Western European art is exhibited.
Russian Museum of Photography
The first photography museum in Russia appeared in Nizhny Novgorod for a reason: prominent 19th‑century photographers Andrey Karelin and Maxim Dmitriev worked here. Trained as a painter, Karelin nevertheless mastered all the physico‑chemical subtleties of photography and produced truly pictorial photographic works. He was especially successful with group portraits set in interiors, which required a high level of skill. Dmitriev was a more versatile author — he photographed landscapes, genre scenes and architecture. His series of images of the Volga and of the lives of people in villages and riverside towns became a valuable historical resource for studying the Volga governorates at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1992 the museum opened in the building that had housed Maxim Dmitriev's photo studio.
Kashirin's House
This house was where Alexey Maximovich Peshkov spent his first year of life; he later adopted the pen name Maxim Gorky. The writer described this house in his autobiographical story 'Childhood', and that description served as a guide for the museum's creators, who strove to recreate the authentic domestic environment. Half of the museum's items actually belonged to the Kashirin family — Gorky's relatives on his mother's side — and through them one can form a realistic idea of the writer's family's life.
Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory
The Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory opened in 1918. In 1919 it was from here that the first transmission of the human voice by radio in Russia was made, and in 1922 the first radio concert — transmitted from the Shukhov Tower in Moscow — laid the foundation for regular broadcasting. The museum's exhibition is organized so that every visitor, even those far from technical matters, can understand how radios, televisions and smartphones work and what contribution the laboratory and its staff made to the country's scientific life.
