Moscow is one of Russia's greatest cities, which offers lots of museums and historical places to its visitors. However, visitors to Moscow usually don't have enough time to see all of Moscow's attractions on one trip to Russia. Still, most travel agencies have done their best to include Moscow's significant attractive places on their tour to Russia program. While most notable attractions of Moscow tour are gathered at the center of the city where you can find Red Square and Kremlin, there are some attractions that most tourists can't visit during their tour to Russia due to the lack of free time. One of those attractions is the All-Russia Museum of Applied and Folk Art.
The All-Russian Museum of Applied and Folk Art is one of the young museums in Moscow, only established in 1981, that contains multiple private collections that were gifted to the state. The museum has mostly focused on Russian decorative art. However, you can also find several sections dedicated to other aspects of applied art and foreign works of art in this museum. The All-Russian Museum of Applied and Folk Art situated inside the Osterman House mansion. The three-story palace of Count Osterman was severely damaged by fire in 1812. After that, it was sold to the Moscow Church Seminary, which was operational until the October Revolution. During the Soviet era, the restored mansion and the new buildings, which was later added to the palace ground by the church, housed the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and Soviet of Ministers. It was only at the beginning of the 1980s that the mansion was handed over to the museum of applied and folk art.
The All-Russia Museum of Applied and Folk Art has five permanent expositions to offer to its visitors on tour to Russia. Each one of these expositions covers different eras and subjects in the history of applied and folk art in Russia. One of these expositions is the halls of Traditional Folk Art. Visitors have a look at a collection of a Volga Region house decorations, including roof, windows, architraves, facade boards decorations. The visitors can also look at the decoration, furniture, and tableware of peasant houses of the northern regions of Russia, which gives a good look at the ritual nature of peasants' way of life. Besides those, visitors will also have a chance to see how women and girls from the 17th to the 19th centuries had worn clothes during festivals; how children played with traditional and folk toys, which has been faded a long time ago, and how Russian lubok and popular prints worked in the past. This part of the museum will tell you how the traditional life of Russians was tied with nature, which is an excellent opportunity for tourists to tour Russia to learn about these aspects of regular life in Russia.
On the decorative and applied art of the late 18th to early 19th centuries, visitors will witness the masterwork of Russian applied art artists from the time of Peter the Great era to the beginning of the 19th century. Visitors who decide to visit this museum on their tour to Moscow will see the work of glassmakers, enamel experts, ceramists, and other areas of applied art and decorative creations that Russian masters had created through this period. There are also multiple examples of furniture that was built for the imperial estates, such as Peterhof.
Before the October revolution, there are lots of artists all over Russia called icon painters, who had lost their source of income with the collapse of Imperial Russia because previously, they were hired by churches and cathedrals, which after the revolution most of them were closed or demolished. Besides churches, ordinary people have also hired those artists to paint icons for their homes. Since those artists needed a way to make a living after the revolution, the Russian lacquer art was born. The same people who have painted icons before had started to paint folklore scenes and tales on decorative boxes. Tourists who visit this museum during their Moscow tour will see some excellent examples of those pieces of art in the Russian Lacquer Miniature exposition. This type of art is one of the purest parts of art that Russian artists had created. That's one of the reasons why this form of art never went through the propaganda period.
The All-Russia Museum of Applied and Folk Art has more than 65000 exhibits that you can see on your tour to Russia. These exhibits are divided into nine different categories, which each one of them represents a different genre of applied and folk art through Russia's history. The museum's collection contains metal and stone, including applied art on metal mugs, ornament trays, stone sculptures, liqueur boxes, and other metal and stone artwork. There are several wooden and bone artworks, mostly decorative items, such as figures, sculptures, easter eggs, and other examples. However, you can find kitchen furniture and caskets on this collection as well. You can also find multiple examples of ceramic artworks, especially plates and dishes. Russia has been quite advanced in glasswork and glass artwork; thus, it's not surprising to see several glass artwork examples in the museum's collection. As we mentioned, lacquered miniature art is one of the main sections of this museum, which means you can see lots of examples of this sort of art all over the museum. We should also mention textile artworks, which have always been popular in Russia. Visitors of Russia tour will see a different form of textile art - on clothing, carpets, and tapestry - in this collection. Besides those, visitors can also find multiple examples of visual arts, rare books, manuscripts, and scientific papers about Russian applied and folk art in this museum. As you can see, there are many things that you can see in this museum if you visit it during your travel to Russia, including a close look at Russian applied and folk art from the beginning of the 18th century to the modern era.
You can learn about other Moscow attractive places, such as museums, cathedrals, parks, and places of interest on our weblog as well as multiple useful pieces of advice about how to travel to Russia, such as top places to visit, best restaurants, prime shopping centers, and more.
