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Monday, 16.07.2007
Museum of the History of Religion
This museum is not only special to Petersburg, but also a rarity in global terms. Until 1999, the museum was housed in the Kazan Cathedral, where it was called in Soviet times “Museum for the History of Religion and Atheism”.
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Kazan Cathedral has now been returned to the Orthodox Church, but most of the exhibits, confiscated after the Revolution and thus ironically preserved, have remained in possession of the museum. It is now located in a newly renovated building opposite the central post office.
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| Coordinates |
Pochtamtskii Pereulok 14
Nearest Metro:
Nevski Prospekt/Gostiny Dvor
Opening hours: 11.00am - 6.00pm
Closed: Wednesdays
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The renovation of the museum building and the relocation of the exhibits have taken over ten years due to funding shortages, and are still not complete, so that the ‘world-wide largest collection on religions of all countries and periods’, encompassing 180,000 exhibits, is in fact still rather more modest.
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Atheism as a central topic has made way for the Orthodox Church, and the exhibition portrays the history from the ur-church to the schism and then the factual nationalisation of the church by the Tsars.
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The somewhat scanty other departments examine the religions of the ancient Egyptians, Jews, Greeks, Romans and also animalism. Unusual for a Petersburg museum is the excellent illumination of the cases, the air-conditioned rooms, decent toilets and even provision of wheelchair ramps.
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If you so find your way to this district behind St. Isaak’s Square, be sure to also glance into the Central Post Office opposite the Museum of Religion, to see one of Petersburg’s lesser known wonders: the huge, renovated art nouveau hall with its massive glass roof.
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