Exhibition 'Tsar-Maket'

About exhibition

Not far from the VDNKh exhibition center is the grand "Tsar-Maket" museum. The largest model of Russia in Moscow, it has already been visited by more than 500,000 young and adult travelers. It has made an incredible impression on all lovers of games and adventures, who can immerse themselves in a giant world in miniature. The journey across Russia at a scale of 1:87 begins with the cities and regions of the Northwestern Federal District, passes through Saint Petersburg, Moscow, the South, Crimea, the Caucasus, the Volga region, the Central Federal District and ends at the country's westernmost point — Kaliningrad. The route is constantly being supplemented with new settlements and areas. Tiny trains pull miniature carriages daily along more than 2.5 kilometers of railway. Real hot-air balloons fly over Nizhny Novgorod. Street traffic in the cities and movement along the routes between settlements are controlled by a special computer system. There are more than 1,000 cars on the model; 250 of them react to each other during an intelligent simulation. A firefighting operation is very spectacular and impressive: two fire trucks and an ambulance rush out to fight a blaze. To date, more than 100,000 tiny inhabitants live on "Tsar-Maket." Their everyday life is lovingly presented in all its variety. Among them you can find heroes of beloved films and cartoons, characters from computer games and literary works. From the Caucasus Mountains to the steppes of Krasnodar Krai, from the forests and villages of central Russia to the sands of the Curonian Spit, the entire miniature landscape is recreated with attention to detail. The model features over 700 architectural structures and more than 20 seas and rivers. The time of day changes: morning, midday, evening, night. One day in miniature Russia lasts 12 minutes. At dusk the night life becomes visible, revealed in mysterious light. Hidden stories play out everywhere; over 50 entertaining scenes can be activated by pressing the green buttons on the control panel. Here you can watch a confectionery factory at work and enjoy a tiny chocolate, dive into the depths of a river with divers, ride along with street racers, or help the robot Vitalik assemble a starship from scrap metal. The weather even changes on the model: thunderstorms roll in, the sun shines. 65 museum employees work daily to create new ideas and toys. The museum still has many more stories to offer. By 2024 a second hall with new sections — the Urals, Siberia and the Far East — is planned to open. In the last section a real ocean will be implemented, with real water. And what will come next, only the Creators know. They continue to build Russia in miniature.