Almost a dozen museums dedicated to the mineralogical appearance of our nature operate in Moscow, located in educational institutions or independently. The Museum of Gems on the People's Militia allows you to see for yourself that the bowels of our planet are rich and diverse.
Here are unique, priceless collections of minerals, crystals, non-metallic minerals, fossils and works of art created by master stone cutters. A tour of the halls of the museum allows you to study the geological history of the planet in a short time and admire the beautiful mineralogical samples.
How did it all start?
The idea to open a stone museum came up with a world-famous scientist, academician, USSR Minister of Geology A. Sidorenko. Under his auspices, in 1973, a salon with the beautiful name "Colored Stones" was created, which laid the foundation for the Museum of Gems at the People's Militia.
Geological expeditions and associations donated their finds to the salon. Deposits of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, the Urals and Yakutia, Siberia, the Far East and the Volga region, Ukraine and the Caucasus - all the stones found a place in the exposition, which grew from year to year. In the late 70s, the exposition was replenished with a collection of ores. The salon received the status of a museum institution in 1994.
Museum Today
In a small museum "Gems" located on the ground floor of a residential building on the street. The People's Militia is represented by about 14 thousand items obtained from the deposits of Russia and countries of near and far abroad. The entire exposition occupies 5 halls with an area of almost 500 square meters. m.
First, the visitor gets acquainted with the richness of the mineral resources of our planet. Walking around the premises, in 15-20 minutes you can explore the world of mineral resources in relation to the regions and find out where topaz is mined, and where tourmalines, where jasper, and where jade. The attention of visitors is riveted by a druze with a topaz crystal weighing 43 kg and blocks of jade. Part of the exposition in the first hall is given to the most common mineral - quartz.
In the second hall, the exquisite beauty and fine work of the products of stone-cutters surprise:
- medallions;
- panels and paintings made of small stone mosaics;
- vases, dishes, jugs and other decorative dishes made of jade, serpentine and malachite, as if descended from the pages of Bazhov's fairy tales.
The hall demonstrates the works of the masters of Moscow and the Urals from new colored stones, such as xonotlite, skarn, irnimit, as well as extremelyspectacular and popular charoite. There is a showcase where crafts with walrus and mammoth tusk carvings are presented.
The third hall of the Gem Museum on the People's Militia invariably attracts women's attention with a magnificent collection of precious stones, natural and cut, which are used to create jewelry. Stone sculptures created by the artist V. Konovalenko are also exhibited here. The mosaic collection is unique: the works represent the decorative possibilities of this material and are made in different techniques, including Russian, Florentine, Byzantine and Roman.
Another interesting showcase in this room shows artificial stones obtained by synthesis. Some of them have fluorescent qualities and glow when exposed to ultraviolet or normal light.
Two more exhibition rooms are located in the basement: one exhibits a collection of facing and decorative rocks, the other - paleontological collections of fossils. 300 exhibits represent the world of ancient inhabitants, vertebrates and invertebrates. The decoration of the hall and the pride of the museum is the skeleton of a pareiasaurus that lived 250 million years ago. Bones and tusks of mammoths, shells, mollusks - modern inhabitants of the Indian and Pacific Oceans are in this room. Of particular interest is a unique collection of rocks from a meteorite crater that fell to Earth 37.5 million years ago.
You can end your tour of the museum in the gallery, which presents the processes of educationminerals and features of various deposits.
Tours
To make visiting the museum an event not only fascinating, but also informative, it is worth going on an excursion with a professional in the world of mineralogy - a guide. Employees of the institution offer the following types of excursion support:
- Overview of the museum collection.
- Features and properties of gems.
- About the places where gems originated and the conditions for their appearance.
- Features of decorative facing and decorative stones.
- How did the art of stone carving develop in our country and in the world.
- Geological disasters on the planet.
Depending on the group, the guide tells a story, focusing on adults or children. Students, future specialists in geology, will be interested in lectures given by researchers within the walls of the museum.
A keepsake
It's impossible to walk around the whole museum and not look into the souvenir shop.
In the Gem Museum on the People's Militia, souvenirs are excellent examples of collectible minerals, jewelry or handicrafts. The cost of the work varies, and therefore everyone can find something to their taste and budget. All visitors will receive a museum exhibition brochure with their ticket.
How it works
It will not be possible to get into the gem museum on the People's Militia on Sunday - this is a day off, and on Monday - this is a sanitary day. On other days, the museum institution receives visitors from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. withoutbreak. When planning your visit, keep in mind that the box office closes an hour earlier.
The road to the museum
The address of the Museum of Gems on Narodnogo Opolcheniya is house 29, building 1. Easy to find.
It is enough to get to the Sokol, Molodezhnaya or Oktyabrskoye Pole metro stations, then transfer to trolleybuses No. 19, 61, 59 or bus No. 691. You need to get off at one of the stops: "Marshal Tukhachevsky Street" or "Palace of Creativity". On the museum website, you can download a diagram that will help, or use any navigator.
