Russian State Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic

About museum

The Arctic Museum was founded in 1930 and opened to visitors on January 8, 1937, in the building of the former Nikolskaya Old Believer church, built to the design of architect A. I. Melnikov in the first half of the 19th century. In 1998 the museum was granted a new status — the Russian State Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic, and today it is the largest museum in the world, with a collection of about 70,000 exhibits devoted to polar themes. The museum's exhibition consists of the "Nature of the Arctic" department, dedicated to the physical-geographical features of the Arctic and its fauna and flora, the "History of the Exploration and Development of the Northern Sea Route" department, and the "Antarctica" department, devoted to the history of the discovery of the sixth continent and the major expeditions to Antarctica.