Unusual museums in Moscow

Interesting museums in Moscow that you might not know about.

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Any guidebook will tell you about Moscow's diverse museums. In this article, I'd like to share some less obvious museums I recommend you visit. The list will include immersive centers, independent galleries, and other unusual places.

Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center

Address: 11 Obraztsova Street, Bldg. 1A.

Russia's largest multimedia museum dedicated to the history of Jews in Russia and the broader culture of dialogue and mutual respect. The museum features a permanent exhibition as well as temporary exhibits.

Permanent exhibition. It consists of 13 thematic halls, each dedicated to a specific period in world and Russian history. The main exhibition opens with the 4D film "Origins." The shtetl (Jewish settlement) occupies the central place in the museum, from which visitors can proceed to halls depicting different periods of Jewish life in Russia.

What exhibitions are currently on display?

• "Yakov Chernikhov. Image of the Future. Architectural Fantasies of the Russian Avant-Garde." This exhibition explores the work of Yakov Chernikhov, a Soviet architect, artist, and graphic artist. The exhibition includes 8 halls and over 500 exhibits (models, architectural designs, photographs, personal items, and more).
• "It Is Not Good for Man to Be Alone." The exhibition commemorates families whose personal belongings have become exhibits. Items from family archives held in the Jewish Museum's collections and antique books with owners' inscriptions from the Museum Library are featured.
• "In Children's Handwriting" is an exhibition of children's drawings and notes from the Schneerson family's books. The drawings are varied: animals, flowers, geometric shapes.
• "Jewish Wedding: For Each Other Since the Beginning of Time" is an exhibition about Jewish wedding traditions. Five halls display over 200 exhibits, including jewelry, costumes, photographs, and paintings by Rembrandt, Chagall, Natalia Goncharova, and others.

Additional Program. In addition to exhibitions, the Tolerance Center hosts trainings, lectures, film programs, and more.

Multimedia Art Museum

Address: Ostozhenka St., Building 16.

The first museum of contemporary art and photography in Russia. The space is dedicated to contemporary art, photography, video art, performance, VR art, and new media. Since its inception, MAMM has hosted over 1,500 exhibitions. Artists whose works have been shown at the museum include Annie Leibovitz, Anotoliy Egorov, Nobuyoshi Araki, and many others. MAMM is one of the most visited museums in Moscow (30,000-35,000 people per month).

The scale of the space is astounding: 7 floors, spacious exhibition halls, and over 180,000 exhibits!

What exhibitions are currently on display?

The museum does not have a permanent collection; projects are constantly being updated. Current projects include:

• "Identified Object" - an exhibition by classic Soviet and Russian artist Andrei Grositsky. The artist has always been interested in everyday objects: a lamp, a hammer, an empty paint tube, a piece of fabric... In addition to paintings, the exhibition includes graphic works (most of which have never been exhibited before).
• "Inhale Exhale" is a posthumous retrospective of Anya Zhelud, one of the most prominent Russian artists of the latest 20 years. She is one of the few Russian participants in the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. In addition to MAMM, her works are exhibited at the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, and elsewhere. The exhibits include metal installations, paintings, and text-based works.
• "Lighter Than Air" is a project by Irina Uspenskaya. The exhibition is dedicated to nature, featuring plant motifs. The objects include paintings, graphics, textiles, and ceramics. The artist herself said: "One day, I gathered a large armful of dandelions and brought them home. Even in a vase, they were full of life: they blossomed with the first rays of the sun and closed at sunset. Soon, the flowers turned into white, weightless balls, which I wanted to protect from sudden movements and drafts." The dandelion became the leitmotif of Uspenskaya's works.

Additional program. In addition to exhibitions, the museum hosts music concerts, master classes, lectures, special film screenings, and much more.

MARS Center

Address: Pushkarev Lane, Building 5.

The project was founded in 1988 by a group of young artists. It was the first private gallery in USSR. MARS is a center for immersive multimedia exhibitions: sensory installations, virtual reality... Concept: a combination of art and cutting-edge technology to create an immersive viewing experience.

The center's two main principles:

- introducing the public to the latest and most advanced works in contemporary art;

- offering its space to a wide range of contemporary artists, leaving the right to judge and choose to time and the viewer.

What exhibitions are currently running?

• "Sleep in the Museum" - an experiential exhibition that combines surrealist painting, multimedia, sound and olfactory components, as well as psychological practices and research in the field of somnology. The exhibition centers on the works of artist Ole Idris. The project's central idea is to create a unique immersive experience, where viewers experience a state akin to waking dreams and test the limits of their imagination. The Sleep Lab partnered with the project.
• "Sense. Feel the Elements" is an immersive exhibition dedicated to the five elements of nature: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Ether. The exhibition utilizes modern technologies, such as audiovisual installations, interactive objects, and special effects, to immerse visitors in the atmosphere of natural elements and help them achieve inner harmony. Reimagining the relationship with nature through art helps people reconnect with nature and their inner selves.

The exhibition features special art objects, such as "Genesis," an audiovisual light show about the history of the birth of the world; the "Breath of Change" installation in the Air Hall; "Bowels," an installation in the Earth Hall created in collaboration with AI; "Acoustic Hall," a corridor in which the sounds of rain and wind can be heard; and "Tirta," an AI installation in the form of a waterfall.

• "Black Lodge" - an exhibition inspired by psychoanalysis, particularly the philosophy of Carl Jung, and the aesthetics of David Lynch, immerses the viewer in the world of dreams and the subconscious. The project explores the unconscious. The Black Lodge is a place in the mythology of Lynch's series "Twin Peaks," a portal to a parallel reality that rules are almost impossible to understand, like the mechanisms of the unconscious in psychology.

The central point of the exhibition is the zone of the Unconscious: museum visitors pass through it and move from the zone of the Persona to the zone of the Self.

• "Inside a Masterpiece" is a VR project that allows viewers to immerse themselves in the plots of famous paintings, such as Shishkin's "Morning in a Pine Forest" and Aivazovsky's "The Ninth Wave." The project goes beyond traditional viewing, offering viewers the opportunity to literally "find themselves" inside these masterpieces.

Sistema Gallery

Address: Bobrov Lane, Building 4, Building 4

A contemporary art gallery supported by the Russian investment company AFK Sistema. The gallery seeks out and introduces new names in the Russian art market. Artists represented include Rostan Tavasiev, Yuri Shabelnikov, Daria Maltseva, and others. The gallery also represents international artists.

Sistema gallery opened in 2022 and has hosted over 40 exhibitions as of now. Sistema Gallery also participates in various fairs both Russian and international (Turkey, China).

What exhibitions are currently on display?

• "Distances Marked by Strength" - an exhibition by Bella Levikova, an abstract artist. The exhibition features over 20 paintings created by the artist from the 1980s to the present.

• "Whiter than White" - an exhibition by Natalia Yudina. "The 'Whiter Than White' project explores atmospheric experiences, the artistic moods that visit us during the winter silence." The exhibition's creators wanted to immerse the viewer in a state of peace and tranquility.
• "Dynamics of the Fragile" - Natalia Sepiashvili's private collection, which includes works by Ivan Asinovsky and Sergei Orlov – outstanding exhibitions.

Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines

Address: Kuznetsky Most metro station, 12 Rozhdestvenka Street.

A museum dedicated to arcade machines from the 1970s–1990s. This is not a state museum, and all exhibits are open to the public: all the machines are fully functional. It features the world's largest collection of working Soviet arcade games. The exhibition includes 59 machines, including "Sea Battle," "Sniper," and "Gorodki." You can also find some true rarities in the museum, including "Memory" and "Pingball".

In addition to the arcade machines, the Moscow branch also features a collection of vending machines, including those selling soda, oxygen cocktails, and more.

The project was launched in the late 2000s by a group of graduates who found and repaired the machines themselves.

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Maria Li