Kunstkamera
Кунсткамера
Founded by Peter the Great as Russia's first museum, famous for deformed foetuses preserved in jars and for collections from peoples around the world.
The Kunstkamera was founded by Peter the Great in 1714 and was Russia's first public museum. Its blue-and-white tower building stands on the Neva embankment on Vasilievsky Island. It is now officially named the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography and holds some 2 million ethnographic objects from around the world, including galleries on China, Japan, India, the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africa. The most famous part is the anatomical collection Peter bought from the Netherlands: deformed foetuses and human specimens floating in glass jars. Visitors who are sensitive may wish to skip that section. The tower also houses a memorial exhibition on Lomonosov. Admission is about 500 roubles. Closed on Mondays, and queues can be long at peak times.
Opening hours
Tue–Sun 11:00–19:00; closed Mondays
Nearby sights
- Spit of Vasilyevsky Island & Rostral Columns
- Palace Bridge
- Bronze Horseman
- Saint Isaac's Cathedral
- State Hermitage Museum / Winter Palace
- Palace Square & Alexander Column
- Nevsky Prospekt
- Yusupov Palace on the Moika