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The State Museum of Urban Sculpture

General Information

History of Museum

The museum is studying, keeping and restoring city's monuments such as The Bronze horseman, Rostral Pillars, Narvsky and Moscow triumphal gates, monuments of Suvorov, Kutuzov, Nicholas the Great, Catherine the Great, Alexander's Column etc. There is a great variety of works made in the museum.

The museum was created in 1939 on the base of the necropolis museum that was organized in 1923. It had the sculptures from Alexander-Nevsky Monastery and Literatorskye Mostki of the Volkov's Cementary.

  The memorial exhibition of the museum is located in Blagovetshensky church of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. It is an outstanding architectural monument of Peter the Great's time (architects Tresini and Shvertfeger, 1717-1724).

The basical collection consists of monuments which are really interesting. In the necropolis of the Alexander Nevsky Monastary the following outstanding persons were buried: Lomonosov, Karamzin, Speransky, Lisjansky, Voronichin, Starov, Glinka, Musorgsky, Chaikovsky, Krilov, Baratinsky, Dostoevsky and other well-known people -- governors, scientists, travellers, musicians, writers, artists, architects and actors. On Literatorskye Mostki there are graves of Mendeleev, Pavlov, Turgenev, Leskov, Blok and some Soviet outstanding people -- Soloviev-Sedoy, Anikushin, Vaganova, Bergolts etc. You can still see beautiful headstones made by the sculptors of 18th-20th century.

Even at the beginning of the 20th century people worried about the conditions of the grave monuments. Vrangel's article "Forgotten Graves" published in the magazine "Past Years" was discussed publicly. The museum "Drevlehranilitshe" attached to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in 1910 maintained the necropolis monuments in good condition. With help of the society "Old Petersburg" created in 1921 the oldest cementary Lasarevskoye became the outdoor museum. So lots of historical monuments were saved in the post-Revolution years.

For the museum is really experienced at repairing and monuments conservation in the city bad climate, it became the leading museum that are keeping and maintaining works of monumental art in St-Petersburg. The museum played an important role in keeping and shielding the monuments during the Blockade of 1941-1944 . The Museum of City Sculpture took a big part in the post war repairs. Among its unique restoring works Moscow Triumphal Gates, big restoring of the Bronze Horseman, creation of Narvsky Gates museum complex, fence restoring of Nicholas the Great Monument, The Guarding Monument restoration can be considered as the greatest ones.

The museum consists of:

  • the city sculpture department (funds, the research department);
  • the memorial sculpture department (exhibitions, funds);
  • restoring department;
  • research assisting rooms (library, photo-store);
  • the branch: necropolis museum "Literatorskye Mostki";
  • department "Narvsky Gates" (temporary closed).