The State Historical Museum (Moscow)

Moscow’s State Historical Museum is located at the edge of Red Square in an imposing red brick Russian Revival building with conical turrets and grand ornate cornices. It is a huge museum containing almost five million exhibits displayed in a series of large frescoed halls. It is an inspiring day out for history buffs and while on weekend breaks in Moscow, you can admire a wealth of early Neanderthal relics and priceless artworks collected by the ruling Romanov dynasty. Notable is the impressive collection of coins which is the largest in Russia, numbering over 1.5 million.

 

Popular highlights include priceless gold artefacts of the Scythians, an intact 5,000 year old longboat, ancient scrolls of Novgorod, Russian folk ceramics and the silver death mask of Peter the Great. There are over half a million items in the fine art collection alone which concentrate mainly on the Tsarist period with elegant royal portraits, sculpture and furnishings along with personal items from rulers such as Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great. The State Historical Museum has some truly lavish displays of aristocratic costumes, tapestries and jewellery and cheap city breaks in Moscow here will delight and inspire art buffs of all ages.

 

Each of its dozen or so exhibition halls are devoted to a particular historic period, and you can wind your way through the museum following Russian history in chronological order. The building itself is embellished with richly colourful frescoes and murals which are worth lingering over themselves. Most exhibits are labelled only in Russian but visitors can take advantage of comprehensive English language guide books and guided tours. On short breaks in Moscow, you could easily spend a whole afternoon here without seeing it all and there are many intriguing and exuberant exhibits that younger children will find ever so endearing.