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MUSEUM OF ETHNOGRAPHY
One of the less-crowded museums, the Museum of
Ethnography covers the various peoples of the former
USSR. Founded at the end of the 19th century as a
branch of the Russian Museum, for years it
propogandized the friendship between the ethnic
groups that made up the USSR with special emphasis on
how happy various nomadic tribes were when Russians
freed them from tsarist oppression and brought them
things like schools, hospitals, and socialism. Now
the exhibition turns the clock back a bit and shows
through folk art, national dress, and various farming
and craft paraphernalia how these same peoples
managed to live for hundreds or thousands of years
without lifting a finger to help the international
proletariat.
The main exhibition is spread out over two floors in
rooms to the left and right of the main entry hall.
The fifteen former republics are covered in the wing
to the right, and to the left are several rooms
featuring artifacts from the St. Petersburg region as
well as rooms dedicated to non-Russian peoples from
the Russian Federation. Some parts of the exhibition
are only mildly interesting and get monotonous after
a while (eg. Estonian beekeeping), whereas even non-
anthropologists will get a kick out of such things as
the intricately carved Georgian wine vessels, the re-
constructed huts with dressed-up Asian mannequins,
and the Far East fish-folk room (on the 2nd floor of
the left hall) complete with decked out model shaman
and guys who eat, wear, live in, and ski on things
made almost exclusively out of fish and reindeer.
The Museum of Ethnography, mimicking the Hermitage,
has a special collection of gold folk jewelry and
other ritzy stuff which can only be viewed on a group
excursion basis. If you're without a group you'll
have to come on a Saturday and get a ticket at 1:30
for a 2:00 excursion. There are also two temporary
exhibition rooms: the huge hall opposite the main
entry hall, and a smaller room just next to the fish-
folk room. Signs outside the museum list these
exhibitions.
Inzhenernaya Ulitsa 4/1. Metro: Nevsky Prospekt. Open
10:00-18:00, closed Mondays and the last Friday of
the month. Tel: 210 4320.
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