What-what, but the number of museums and exhibition venues St. Petersburg can boast like no other city. But still, the Museum of Printing stands apart. It details the entire history of domestic book printing in the city on the Neva from the appearance of the first Russian newspaper Vedomosti in 1703 to the present day.
History of the museum
The Museum of Printing in the Northern Capital is located in the very center of the city - next to Palace Square. Although the city has seen many unusual and original cultural institutions in recent years, such as those dedicated to bread or even Russian vodka, classical museums also find their visitors.
The building, which today houses the Museum of Printing in St. Petersburg, appeared in the late XIX - early XX centuries. In 1905, during a period of large-scale changes in the country, when the demand for the printed word increased sharply as a result of the first Russian revolution, an outbuilding was added to the building, which housed a printing house.
For several years, the newspaper "Rus" was published within these walls, adhering to Slavophile positions. And during the Great October Revolution, it was in this printing house thatthe famous "Pravda", the release of which was directed by Vladimir Lenin himself.
Although from the point of view of the communist ideology the building was of great importance, the Museum of Printing appeared in it relatively recently. In 1984. During perestroika, it became part of the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. Let's take a virtual tour of it.
What's special about the Print Museum?
All year round the Museum of Printing can delight visitors with three permanent exhibitions. Moreover, two of them are directly related to the printing business. But the third is the "Music Salon". This exhibition demonstrates the standard furnishings and decoration of the home of a classic St. Petersburg music lover of the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
Moreover, every Sunday the employees of the cultural institution organize an unusual and rich excursion for visitors. They go on a hiking trip through the adjacent historical quarters of the Northern capital. The tour ends with a tour of the composition in the museum itself.
History of printing business
But the exhibition "The History of Printing" is directly related to the development of domestic book production. It tells in detail about the work of printing houses and publishing houses in the city on the Neva in the 18th century.
The exhibits are located in special rooms, the interiors are more reminiscent of the decoration of an old Russian reading room. Visitors can view newspapers, magazines anddocuments of those times, printed in the first printing houses of St. Petersburg. Imagine how the first printing presses worked, on which the Vedomosti newspaper was printed. It is worth remembering that the work of a typographer at that time was personally mastered by Peter I.
Typography in the 20th century
The second permanent exhibition, which you can visit when you come to the Museum of Polygraphy and Printing, is "Publishing and Printing House of the Beginning of the 20th Century". Here are all sorts of things that were used at that time by book publishers and printers.
These are furniture, stationery of the time, newspapers and books printed on machines from the early 20th century.
The exposition is located in the former printing house. Its interior has hardly changed since the 1900s. Here you can see the unique printing equipment. Type-setting cash desks, printing accessories, real machines and presses. Everything a print shop needed at the time.
Music Salon
Another permanent exhibition - "Music Salon". It is located in two museum halls at once. Here you can see with your own eyes what tenement houses were at that time, at the beginning of the 20th century. The Museum of Printing (St. Petersburg) provides a unique opportunity to touch the real elements of the interior of the beginning of the last century, the musical instruments of the St. Petersburg music lover.
The best apartment buildings at that time were located in the mezzanine. Only we althy residents could afford to rent them. Petersburg. The historical layout of the apartment, which houses the music salon, has been preserved. Everything is as it was over a hundred years ago. Rooms are the same size, things are in the same places.
Two apartments fit in two rooms - a living room and an office. At that time, the majority of St. Petersburg residents, whom we would now classify as the middle class, managed with such living space.
Where is the museum?
Do you want to visit the Museum of Printing in St. Petersburg? The address of this institution is Moika Embankment, 32. The easiest way to get there by public transport is to the Admir alteyskaya metro station.
The entrance ticket is quite inexpensive - only 150 rubles. Discounts are provided for students, schoolchildren and pensioners. They will pay only 100 rubles for entry. The weekly Sunday walking tour, which ends with a visit to the exhibition, is completely free. You only need to get a ticket at the box office.
The Museum of Printing (St. Petersburg, Moyka, 32) is open six days a week. Day off only on Wednesday. Exhibition halls open at 11 am. You can view the collections until 18:30.
Print Museum reviews
True, it is worth recognizing that not all visitors leave positive feedback about the museum. So, one can come across opinions that the big minus of the exposition is the inability to get close to the old printing presses. Many visitors complain that they cannot even be seen properly. The only thing that attracted them to thisexpositions are authentic creaky parquet and the very opportunity to visit a real residential building on the Moika embankment.
Other visitors, on the contrary, leave only rave reviews. Many people manage to feel the spirit of the typography of the past, especially the antique windows of an unusual shape, as well as an office with musical instruments, attract attention. For some, special feelings are caused by the office in which Vladimir Lenin once worked. It was in this house that he personally edited the first issues of the Pravda newspaper. In fact, in this small room at that time the fate of a huge country was decided.
Tourists also note that the museum itself is small. But in order to find out all the stories about its exhibits, it is better not to buy an ordinary entrance ticket, but to book a tour with a specialist who will tell you in detail about all the mysteries of typographic skill. You can also get acquainted with the life of tenement houses, with a collection of music lovers of that time.
Sightseeing walking tour
Separately, it is worth stopping for a sightseeing walking tour, which attracts a large number of visitors every Sunday.
It's called "Beyond the Threshold of the Old Apartment". In a few hours, tourists and residents of the northern capital get acquainted with the classic tenement house on the Moika embankment, as well as one of its apartments.
But the tour begins with a tour of the old quarter, in which at the beginning of the 20th century there were a lot of such establishments. Experienced guides will tell visitors how this ancient district of the city on the Neva developed, how the embankment was built- in a word, the whole history of these places from the 18th century to the present day.
The interiors of an ordinary apartment of a city dweller at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries will, as it were, take us back to that time. In the exhibition you can see pieces of furniture, ordinary knick-knacks that were of great importance to someone many years ago.
This fascinating tour ends with a story about the history of printing, which developed most rapidly in St. Petersburg in the 18th-20th centuries. You will have a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the work of the editorial office in pre-revolutionary Russia, find out how its life was arranged and how the work process proceeded.
