Gallery at home: City museum collections to come online

Collections of city museums supervised by the Moscow Department of Culture will be available online at union.catalog.mos.ru. As of today, it features a total of over 7,500 exhibits from seven city museums.

Internet users can browse online the GULAG History Museum, the Battle of Borodino Panorama Museum, the Marina Tsvetayeva House Museum, the Fashion Museum, the Ostankino Estate Museum, the Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad and the Glazunov Gallery. In the future, the website will feature collections from almost 50 Moscow museums.

Creating  online museum collections is a joint project of the Moscow Department of Culture and the Moscow Department of Information Technologies.

“Before the end of this year, we will digitalise several dozen thousand exhibits from museum collections,” a spokesperson for the Moscow Department of Information Technologies said. “These are paintings, books, magazines, portraits, and personal belongings of writers and artists. The Marina Tsvetayeva House Museum, for example, displays her photographs and letters. Now these have been digitalised. This unique museum collection is now available to internet users for free.”

The website will offer most items from the museum collections. To find an exhibit, users can type in a keyword or a description in the advanced search bar. The exhibits will be lined up to form thematic albums and virtual exhibitions.

Uploading e-versions of museum collections is a global trend, the spokesperson added.

“This project is meant to educate and popularise culture,” a spokesperson for the Moscow Department of Culture said. “It is highly likely that internet users will want to visit the museums and see the displays with their own eyes after seeing them online. The new website will also be of great help to students at liberal arts universities working on their term or graduation papers, as well as to secondary school students.”

Creating e-collections has become possible owing to the introduction of a unified online register of museum collections. In the future, the website will help museums to organise virtual exhibitions and tours, create guide apps, and much more.

Museums to offer e-displays:

— T-34 Tank History Museum (89a, Sholokhovo Village, Mytishchi District, Moscow Region);

— Mikhail Bulgakov Museum (10 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street);

— Kuskovo Estate (2 Yunosti Street);

— Severnoye Tushino Park (56 Svobody Street);

— Museum of Moscow (2 Zubovsky Boulevard);

— Marina Tsvetayeva House Museum (6/1 Borisoglebsky Pereulok);

— The Yesenin Museum (24/2 Bolshoi Strochenovsky Pereulok);

— Museum of Russian Lubok and Naive Art (10/1 Maly Golovin Pereulok);

— Museum of Vasily Tropinin and Moscow Artists of His Time (10/1 Shchetininsky Pereulok);

— Ostrovsky Integratsiya State Museum and Cultural Centre (14 Tverskaya Street);

— Tsaritsyno State Museum Reserve (1 Dolskaya Street);

— Sergei Andriyaka Moscow State Specialised School of Watercolour Painting with a museum and exhibition complex (17 Gorokhovsky Pereulok);

— Battle of Borodino Panorama Museum (38/1 Kutuzovsky Prospekt);

— Alexander Scriabin Memorial Museum (11 Bolshoi Nikolopeskovsky Pereulok);

— Manezh State Exhibition Hall (New Manezh at 3/3 Georgiyevsky Pereulok; Central Manezh at 1 Manezhnaya Square; Chekhov’s House at 29/4 Malaya Dmitrovka; Gostiny Dvor at 4 Ilyinka Street);

— The Moscow State Integrated Museum Reserve of Art and Historical Architectural and Natural Landscape (Kolomenkoye Museum Reserve at 39 Andropova Prospekt; Izmailovo Museum Estate at 2/14 Bauman Village; Lyublino Museum Reserve at 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 Letnyaya Street);

— Paustovsky Moscow Literary Museum Centre (8 Kuzminskaya Street);

— Pushkin State Museum (12/2 Prechistenka Street);

— State Darwin Museum (57 Vavilova Street);

— Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics (111 Prospekt Mira);

— Nikolai Gogol House Memorial Museum and Research Library (7a Nikitsky Boulevard);

— Fashion Museum (4 Ilyinka Street);

— Ostankino Estate Museum (5 1^st Ostankinskaya Street);

— Ilya Glazunov Moscow State Art Gallery (13 Volkhonka Street);

— The Bourganov House Moscow State Museum (15/9 Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Pereulok);

— Timiryazev State Museum of Biology (15/1 Malaya Gruzinskaya Street);

— Gorky Park (9 Krymsky Val Street);

— Mayakovsky State Museum (3/6/4 Lubyansky Proyezd);

— GULAG History Museum (9/1 1^st Samotyochny Pereulok);

— Moscow Museum of Modern Art (25 Petrovka Street);

— Moscow Zoo (1 Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street);

— Multimedia Art Museum (16 Ostozhenka Street);

— Zelenograd Museum (10^th Residential District, 11v Gogol Street);

— Vladimir Vysotsky State Culture Centre and Museum (3/1 Vysotsky Street);

— Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russia Abroad (2 Nizhnyaya Radishevskaya Street);

— Garden Ring Museum (14/10 Prospekt Mira);

— State Museum of the Defence of Moscow (3 Michurinsky Prospekt);

— Alexander Shilov Moscow State Art Gallery (5 Znamenka Street);

— Father Frost’s Moscow Estate (168d Volgogradsky Prospekt);

— Eldar Film Club (105 Leninsky Prospekt);

— Zaryadye Park (6 Varvarka Street).

Moscow museums are becoming more popular, offering special terms for those interested in their displays. In summer, school students from all over the world can visit the city museums supervised by the Moscow Department of Culture for free. This offer is available at 90 venues.

Visitors can obtain a free ticket to see the museums’ main expositions at the ticket offices. Unlike children from other regions or countries, school students from Moscow must first show their social or Moskvyonok cards.