Volga–Vyatka Branch of the A.S. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (Nizhny Novgorod — Arsenal)

About museum

Arsenal is one of the leading regional institutions presenting contemporary art within the broad context of world culture. Since 1997 it has carried out numerous exhibition and multidisciplinary projects, festivals, as well as educational, children’s and inclusive programmes.

Since 2012 the museum has been housed in the Arsenal building (1843) — an architectural monument of federal significance, a former military warehouse on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. Thanks to this, the institution became known as “Arsenal”. In 2006–2015 the 7,000 sq. m. building was restored and adapted into a modern museum under a project by Evgeny Ass and Alexander Epifanov.

Arsenal operates in two wings. The right wing contains two floors of exhibition spaces totaling 2,000 sq. m., a children’s center, a museum shop, a café, elevators that allow visitors with strollers to access the exhibitions, and a baby changing and nursing room. The left wing houses a media library (reading room), and concert and lecture halls. The two entrances are connected by an inner courtyard with the longest bench in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.

In 2020 Arsenal became part of the A.S. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, becoming its Volga–Vyatka branch. This union creates and develops a new creative environment that engages with the unique identity of the territory, presents contemporary artistic processes and integrates classical art into a current context.

Our mission: 'Arsenal creates a space for artistic communication for the development of the individual, society and the territory'.