Winter is not a reason to stay at home, not when so many interesting things are going on around you. Check out our selection of the best exhibitions and other events featured in the Silver Necklace museums.
Enjoy exciting events for children and adults, for groups of friends or couples, spanning various topics and formats. Have fun, play, be surprised, think, discover new things or, on the contrary, plunge into the past, catch the New Year's spirit and believe in magic at any of the events from the selection below.
NOVGOROD REGION
Museum of Borovichi and the Borovichi Region
The Linking Thread of Times exhibition
The exhibition takes you on a journey along a unique route across urban space, telling the city’s story through its old photographs. Old images, yellowed in places, have an amazing power to rivet viewers’ attention and drawing them into events long past. If an event, a landscape or a street looks different now, it makes us wonder why that change happened, what was the reason or purpose, and if it is better or worse this way. You will be able to answer these questions by looking at old photographs at the exhibition, The Linking Thread of Times. Guests will enjoy panoramic images with churches towering above old stone merchant mansions, cobbled streets, shopping arcades, and the Gostiny Dvor with a stone arcade and beautiful arches of the bypass gallery. Borovichi is an open-air museum where every house and every street has a story to tell.
Выставка «История экспонатов»
The History of Exhibits exposition
The decorations hanging on the museum’s Christmas tree are not just ordinary ornaments; they are also symbols of many historical events of the 19th through 21st centuries. Ornaments made of glass with cotton wool snow, of Dresden cardboard popular at the time, papier mache, porcelain, metal foil, perestroika-era plastic and the finest modern glass, as well as handmade décor items and decorations depicting characters from fairy tales and cartoons, astronauts, ships, aircraft, etc., on green branches make adults and children believe in fairy tales and in New Year’s magic. Experience a real New Year's fairy tale.
ARKHANGELSK REGION
Vasily Kulakov Velsk Museum of Local History and Lore
When Christmas Trees Light Up exhibition
Come and enjoy the exhibition with your entire family. Plunge into the New Year's spirit while looking at Christmas tree decorations from your childhood. Each ornament is a piece of magic and history that can take you back years. You don't believe it? Join our game tour and see for yourself.
More information at vel-museum.ru
Address 39 Lenina Square, Velsk
Museum of the Artist and Storyteller Stepan Pisakhov
The Gingerbread North exhibition
This is the most delicious, wintery and Christmassy exhibition of handmade kozuli cookies and other kinds of gingerbread. Arkhangelsk kozuli have a unique story. In ancient times, there was a tradition in the Russian north to bake rye cookies shaped as goats, horses, roosters or deer, as a symbol of fertility, prosperity and wealth. You will be amazed by the beauty, elegance and uniqueness of these products.
Old Mansion on the Embankment
The Lace Tale of Vologda exhibition
The Old Mansion on the Embankment will house a display of an amazing old craft known throughout the world – Vologda lace from the Museum of Lace collection. Immerse yourself in a winter fairy tale woven by the clever hands of our lacemakers, and learn about the subtleties of their craftsmanship and artistic traditions.
Photo https://vk.com/arhmuseum
More information at https://vk.com/arhmuseum
Address 79 Severnaya Dvina Embankment, Arkhangelsk
VOLOGDA REGION
Vologda Museum Reserve
The Snow Album: Photo display by Olga Ponomaryova
“The exhibition includes photographs reflecting happy winter times, wonderful moments of beauty and tenderness that are gifts of nature or our beautiful city. The Snow Album is multicoloured and bright, just like life itself. It encourages everyone to find a reason to be happy, to smile and to think looking at the beautiful world around us. I believe beauty, as always, will save us from despondency and sadness, and these New Year holidays will bring us a little more kindness and warmth,” the photographer shared, describing the concept of the exhibition.
Kirillo-Belozersky Museum Reserve
The Tsar’s Guard exhibition
The exhibition tells us about the events of the 16th-17th centuries, when the Russian state struggled with numerous Crimean-Nogai raids. It includes materials on the foundation of the Yepifan fortress and archaeological finds from the 16th and 17th centuries – tools carpenters used to make abatises, soldiers’ weapons and equipment, horse tack, ‘scale’ coins that service members were paid for their service, and household items. In the centre of the room is a diorama of the Orlovy Gate fortifications that were part of the Zasechnaya Cherta (Great Abatis Line). The interactive zone reveals the service people’s daily concerns and explains the privileges and wages of representatives of various military classes. Young visitors are invited to build their own fortresses with wooden cubes they can take from a large chest.
KALININGRAD REGION
Kaliningrad Region Amber Museum
Twists and Turns: The Art of Bone Carving in Siberia exhibition
This winter, shortly before the New Year holidays, the Amber Museum will open an exhibition of scrimshaw items that reveal the culture and lifestyle of the indigenous peoples of the north. Check out the miniature figurines depicting local residents in traditional attire on sleighs, with dogs, bears and reindeer, as well as fairy tale characters.
Rantava History and Archaeology Museum
Tree Needles: Conifers Can Be So Different exhibition
Everyone knows that a fir tree is a traditional attribute of the New Year and Christmas celebrations in various countries. During the holiday season, they adorn homes and outdoor spaces alike. The exhibition Tree Needles: Conifers Can Be So Different will answer questions you have been always curious about. How did conifers get their name? Why does a Christmas tree have needles? You will also learn what grows in the museum’s courtyard.
Gusev Museum of Local History and Lore
Mother of God, the Protector and Intercessor: Exhibition of icons
The display presents Russian icons of the 19th century from Andrei Balyko’s private collection. It includes Mother of God images that are especially revered in Russia such as Our Lady of Kazan, Our Lady of Vladimir, Our Lady of Tikhvin, the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God and others. Historically, these wonderworking icons have been a protective prayer shield for our Fatherland. Each icon is a gem of Russian religious painting heritage.
LENINGRAD REGION
Vyborg Museum Reserve
The History of Money in Russia exhibition
This exhibition explains the evolution of money in Russia, from olden times to the present day. The display stands cover five major topics: the origin of money, the development of minting and printing technologies, methods of protecting against and fighting counterfeiters, where and how Russians have been keeping their savings, and ways to transport large sums around the country.
More information at vyborgmuseum.org
Address 1 Zamkovy Ostrov, Vyborg
House of Alexander Pushkin’s Nanny
The Old Traditions in Modern Times wickerwork exhibition
Basketwork as a craft has a long history and pre-dates metal and woodworking. It is also still relevant today. People gladly use baskets, wickerwork bread bins, bowls and other household items. Wicker products are trendy, practical and environmentally friendly. We invite everyone to admire the amazing items.
Hermitage-Vyborg Exhibition Centre
Castles, Cathedrals and Palaces: European Interiors of 15th-19th Centuries
This exhibition offers a look into the interior decoration of secular, residential and religious premises. The items on display span a period of more than four centuries. Visitors will see décor items from the different periods of the royal court – the castle period, which later gave way to a “palace” lifestyle of the royals and their entourage – as well as religious items used during Catholic worship. Check out various artistic crafts produced in Italy, France, Flanders, Holland, England and Germany, as well as Russia. Come and admire unique exhibits from the State Hermitage collection.
Фото: https://vk.com/club18743368
The Christmas exhibition
Twinkling Christmas tree decorations, snow-covered streets, wintery St Petersburg and cute ornaments – the works are very different, but they are all united by a common theme – winter, New Year and Christmas. Come get into the Christmas spirit as the holiday season draws closer.
MURMANSK REGION
Murmansk Regional Art Museum
Arctic 2021, an exhibition of works by Murmansk Region artists
This exhibition is a kind of creative annual report presented by fine and decorative art professionals from the Murmansk Region. The display will comprise over 100 works that have been selected by the exhibition committee including paintings, graphics and applied art by well-known artists as well as beginners.
Nikolskaya Fair, Murmansk Region folk art exhibition
The participants in this exhibition and fair are arts and crafts professionals, as well as members of folk clubs, amateur groups and studios in the Murmansk Region. The artists will present their works, made using traditional and modern techniques including lace making, weaving, patchwork, basketwork, birch bark weaving, woodcarving, decoupage, felting, knitting and so on. Visitors will be able to purchase unique New Year gifts, souvenirs and toys for their loved ones.
Kola History Museum
What’s Inside the Chest? exhibition
An exhibition of homemade needlework items from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, made by craftswomen from Kola. All these pieces, given to the museum by city residents, have become the core of our museum collection. Take the first exhibit – it is a tablecloth crocheted more than 100 years ago by Marfa (Maria) Shabunina, a Kola resident, as well as embroidered towels, valances and curtains. The story of each item or each family can help us better understand and learn more about the history of the city, the region and the country.
Murmansk Regional Museum of Local History and Lore
Birds: The Technology of Excellence exhibition
This exhibition is dedicated to the nine “superpowers” that birds have – they can fly, dive, navigate in flight, breathe at an altitude of 10,000 metres, see small objects from a great height, sing with two voices, do without teeth, hatch in “stone cradles” and drink salt water. The rich ornithological collections of the Darwin Museum and the Murmansk Regional Museum of Local History and Lore vividly demonstrate the unsurpassed capabilities of birds. Find out which species hold records for speed, altitude and flight range. Our oological display will give you an idea of the variety of colours and sizes of bird eggs.
PSKOV REGION
Pskov Izborsk Museum Reserve
The Nativity Scene
This cultural and educational programme on the celebration of the Nativity of Christ will introduce young and old viewers to the traditions of icon painting and nativity plays accompanied by beautiful live singing. Puppets will recreate the nativity events: the evil, represented by King Herod, will be punished as it should be; he will pay for his terrible deeds, and the audience will share the joy of the Christmas miracle. Traditionally, such Christmas performances were watched by the whole family, young and old; we will honour our ancestors and continue this wonderful tradition.
Photo https://vk.com/pskovmuseum
Leave that for the New Year exhibition
The long-awaited holiday season is almost here. As always, preparations for the New Year create a special magical atmosphere filled with expectations of a miracle, but it’s not time yet – leave that for the New Year! This is the name of the New Year exhibition at the Museum Educational Centre. Check out our Soviet Christmas decorations depicting a space journey, a circus arena or a snowy town, and a small collection of Father Frost figurines and many other long-forgotten but fascinating New Year ornaments.
Photo https://vk.com/pskovmuseum
More information at https://museumpskov.ru/
Address 7 Nekrasova Street, Pskov
REPUBLIC OF KARELIA
Kizhi Museum Reserve
The Christmas Story interactive programme
Visit our exhibition, The Land of KižiMua, attend the Nativity Scene yule theatre production by the Folklore and Ethnographic Ensemble of the Kizhi Museum Reserve, and take part in a workshop to make your own angel Christmas decoration. KižiMua is an amazing, mysterious country, the archetype of our region. You will get there through a magical maze by completing game tasks. This fabulous land can teach travellers many things – to create and to contemplate, to sing songs and hear the sounds of nature, to make discoveries and speak a new language.
The Masterpiece Adventure quest
Guests will enjoy an entertaining programme at the exhibition dedicated to the unique project to renovate the famous wooden church built without a single nail on the island of Kizhi. Young visitors will be greeted by no other than Nestor, who built the Church of the Transfiguration more than 300 years ago. The renowned builder will offer the children a variety of challenges (build a huge Jenga tower, assemble a mysterious puzzle and more). This way children will actually enjoy visiting the complicated exhibition and have fun.
National Museum of the Republic of Karelia
Culture of Everyday Life: Recycle and Trash of Fashion exhibition
This unique exhibition, Culture of Everyday Life, is devoted to rational waste management, product design and sustainable fashion. By giving a second life to things, we adopt a high culture of consumption and save the world around us. Our designers have clearly shown that items made from waste can become works of art.
Izändä: Karelian Uprising of 1921-1922 exhibition
This exhibition unravels the events that happened 100 years ago – the East Karelian uprising of 1921-1922. It was the final stage of the Kinship War in the North, a strategically important region for politicians and a home for local residents, the land of their ancestors.
The Winter Forest exhibition: a play space for the whole family
Young visitors will learn a few fascinating facts about how forest animals prepare for the winter, which of them hibernate and which continue to be active. Sneak a peek into their “homes” as well as their “winter canteen,” and find out the “culinary preferences” of the forest inhabitants of Karelia. Animals are the focus of the Winter Forest exhibition – a bear cub, badger, squirrel, wolverine, Arctic fox, as well as birds wintering in our region. Our young visitors will not only learn unusual and amazing facts about them, but will also be able to play: solve a mysterious maze, feed the animals, match their coats, and find an animal or a bird by following its trail.
KOMI REPUBLIC
Komi Republic National Museum
Shishkin: Love and Art exhibition
The exhibition will feature Ivan Shishkin’s authentic graphic works as well as pencil drawings by Olga Lagoda-Shishkina, the artist's student and second wife. The highlights of the exhibition are certainly Ivan Shishkin’s hallmark Russian forest landscapes, as well as several memorable items from the Shishkins' house dating to the 19th-early 20th centuries. Visitors will have a unique opportunity to see a watercolour postcard made by the artist's daughter Ksenia. Among other things, the exhibition reflects a major research project – the famous Russian landscape artist’s family tree with more than 500 names and 15 generations.
Изображение: https://vk.com/museumkomi
Technical Aesthetics: Things and Meanings exhibition
Technical aesthetics refers to the methods and techniques used in Soviet design in the second half of the 20th century which helped make industrial products that were both functional and attractive. A network of scientific research institutes and special art design bureaus was established in the Soviet Union, which rolled out a new generation of items designed to satisfy consumer needs and tastes. The exhibition presents consumer goods of the 1960s through 1980s that reflect the technical aesthetics principles. Note how those goods revealed the motifs that were common in those years – space exploration, minimalism, futuristic fantasies and the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Winter Out of Town exhibition
Winter in the countryside is a sea of sparkling snow and clean frosty air, with kids buzzing in a happy hubbub and dogs barking during the day and perfect silence reigning in the evening. Lights in the windows of the houses beckon with their warmth, where there’s a nice, cosy spot to get warm by the burning stove. The exhibition presents paintings, original and printed graphics by Russian and Komi artists depicting the most fun time of the year – winter and the anticipation of holidays.
ST PETERSBURG
The Russian Museum
Outside the Establishment project
Outside the Establishment is the Russian Museum’s inclusive project and the first serious attempt to present works by non-professional artists with mental disorders and (or) a psychiatric history, with a focus on their artistic value. For all the social significance of the project, the aesthetic value of the works selected comes into focus. These people can express their special worldview through a creative effort. Importantly, these artists are different because they are not involved in the art community or the art establishment, with its market strategies, its current discourse, etc.
Изображение: https://vk.com/rusmuseum
I am Dostoevsky
200th birth anniversary of Fyodor Dostoevsky
This exhibition’s concept was to select paintings for an imaginary “ideal museum” for Dostoevsky, paintings that he admired during his life. His attitude to art, his articles on art history and painting, and his reflections on how artists should convey the impressions from what they see have helped us understand his creative laboratory. The purpose of this exhibition is to present a visual and meaningful idea of the author’s thinking and creative processes through his views on paintings. The display will also include items that belonged to Dostoevsky, as well as rare exhibits from the Pushkin House Literary Museum and the Dostoevsky Museum in St Petersburg.
Изображение: https://vk.com/rusmuseum
Cosmism in Russian art
This is the first exhibition that brings together works by famous as well as lesser-known artists whose work reflects the various aspects of cosmism, an idea that vividly manifested itself in Russian science and philosophy. The display will include more than 150 paintings and graphics from the Russian Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, the Tver Regional Art Gallery and the Novosibirsk State Art Museum, as well as from private collections in St Petersburg and Moscow.
St Petersburg Museum of Avant-Garde (Matyushin's House)
Vladimir Grinberg: Painting, Graphics exhibition
Vladimir Grinberg (1896-1942) was a painter and graphic artist, one of the prominent representatives of the Leningrad landscape school, whose work reflected the ideas of French post-impressionism. The exhibition includes his paintings and graphics from the State Museum of the History of St Petersburg, from the mature period of his work. Most of them are Leningrad landscapes from the 1930s. The artist captured the city as he knew it in his characteristic minimalist manner.
Museum of Political History of Russia
Outer Space: Between a Dream and Politics
Exhibition on the 60th anniversary of Yury Gagarin's flight into space
How did the space race – the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space flight – unfold? What are the prospects for cosmonautics in the 21st century? The history of space exploration in the context of global political processes is the focus of the exhibition, Outer Space: Between a Dream and Politics. The display includes unique photographs and documents, models of space rockets and planetary rovers, as well as items that belonged to famous scientists, designers and cosmonauts. You will see the beret given to Gagarin by Fidel Castro, the first cosmonaut’s flight uniform, a few personal belongings of Soviet chief designer Sergei Korolev and his death mask, and the flight map of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft compiled by Alexei Leonov and signed by the cosmonaut. Other famous names at the exhibition include scientists Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Mikhail Yangel, cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova, Pavel Belyaev, Nikolai Rukavishnikov, and others.
The Marshal of Victory
Exhibition on the 125th birth anniversary of Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Zhukov’s talent for military strategy fully manifested itself during the Great Patriotic War. He was nicknamed the Marshal of Victory for his heroic fight against Nazism. This exhibition at the Museum of Political History of Russia displays Zhukov's personal items, such as his glasses and case, his shirt with a tie, his multi-coloured ballpoint pen, as well as a carpet with the marshal’s portrait presented to him by the Pyatigorsk Carpet Artel. These items have been donated to the museum by Zhukov’s daughter, Maria. The exhibition also features some of Zhukov's numerous awards, wartime posters and rare photographs from various years.
The Only Defender of the Prisoners
An exhibition dedicated to doctors who were Gulag prisoners
The exhibition tells the story of doctors who were prisoners in the Gulag. Being prisoners themselves, they did more than just treat their patients; they also organised prison life. Visitors will see photographs, documents and personal belongings of prisoner doctors, and medical instruments from the 1930s-1950s. The display mostly includes materials from the personal archive of one such doctor, Andrei Pantyukhov, donated to the museum in 2020. Pantyukhov saved many lives, including that of Russian author Varlam Shalamov. Doctor Pantyukhov inspired the protagonist of several of his Kolyma Tales.
More information at polithistory.ru
Address 2-4 Kuibysheva Street, St Petersburg
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Cover photo: Vologda Museum Reserve, The Old Mansion on the Embankment, Museum of the Artist and Storyteller Stepan Pisakhov
Фото для обложки: Вологодский музей-заповедник, Старинный особняк на Набережной, Музей художника и сказочника С.Г. Писахова
