10 NEW museums in Russia you should visit

1. Tretyakov Gallery Branch, Kaliningrad

A new branch of one of the country's main museums opened in Summer 2025 on Oktyabrsky Island. Now, Russian fine art, for which the Tretyakov Gallery is famous for, will be closer to residents and guests of Kaliningrad. The venue hosts major exhibitions from the gallery's collection, concerts and movie screenings.

In addition, the gallery also houses a Children's Museum, where visitors can learn to understand art from a young age, as well as a multimedia hall dedicated to the history of the gallery.

2. Planet Ocean (Ocean Museum), Kaliningrad

Another major discovery of last summer was the new building of the World Ocean Museum in Kaliningrad. ‘Planet Ocean’ is a huge glass sphere 42 meters in diameter, housing an exhibition and educational center dedicated to the ocean. Spread over seven floors are an aquarium, scientific laboratories, exhibition halls, as well as a library.

3. ZILART Museum, Moscow

This private museum is based on the collection of collectors Andrey and Elizaveta Molchanov, which has been assembled over the past 25 years and, now, comprises over 8,000 works. Across five floors, visitors can see a variety of exhibitions that change several times a year. All are curated from the owners' eclectic collection, which includes official and unofficial Soviet art, contemporary Western and Russian art, photography and even a collection of 19th–20th century African sculpture.

4. Museum of Naval Glory, Kronstadt

The new museum in Kronstadt has become part of the ‘Island of Forts’ cluster. The museum's centerpiece is the authentic K-3 ‘Leninsky Komsomol’ nuclear submarine, the first Soviet nuclear submarine. It’s housed in a specially built pavilion, where visitors can not only view the submarine from the outside, but also go inside and see its compartments and battle stations.

5. Perm Art Gallery at the Shpagin Factory

At the end of 2025, the Perm Art Gallery moved into a new building at the Shpagin Factory. It has one of the oldest and largest art collections in Russia, with over 53,000 exhibits, including the famous Perm wooden sculpture, Stroganov painting and gold embroidery. The gallery also features extensive collections of Russian art from the 18th–20th centuries, as well as foreign examples of decorative and applied art. The new building, meanwhile, has become part of a large cultural space on the site of a former locomotive repair plant.

6. Tretyakov Gallery in Samara

The Tretyakov Gallery in Samara is housed in a unique Constructivist monument – the factory-kitchen building of the Maslennikov Plant, constructed in the shape of a hammer and sickle. After restoration completed in 2024, the factory regained its original appearance. The exhibition halls occupy around 2,000 square meters. The first floor features an exhibition dedicated to the phenomenon of factory-kitchens. The branch also has an education center, a cinema, a library with multimedia resources, a gift shop, and a café.

7. Tretyakov Gallery Building on Kadashevskaya Embankment, Moscow

A new building opened next to the gallery's historic building in 2024. It houses exhibition halls, restoration workshops for painting, graphics and sculpture, as well as a scientific photo archive. The open atrium facing the embankment has become a multifunctional public space. On the building's facades, visitors can see reproductions of 34 works by Russian artists.

8. ‘New Chersonesus’ Museum Complex, Sevastopol

This is not just a single museum, but a vast historical and archaeological park that opened in Summer 2024. It’s located on the site of ancient Chersonesus. The museum complex includes the Museum of Christianity, the Museum of Antiquity and Byzantium and the Museum of Crimea and Novorossiya. Interactive exhibitions allow visitors to immerse themselves in the past and learn about the region's history.

9. ‘Maslovka. Artists' Town’ Museum Center, Moscow

The museum opened in 2025 in the legendary ‘Artists' Town’ – a complex of workshops on Verkhnyaya Maslovka Street, where sculptors and painters lived and worked during the Soviet era. The new museum space is dedicated to the history of this place: visitors can see memorabilia, photographs and works of art. There are also temporary exhibitions dedicated to the legacy of the artists who lived and worked here.

10. PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm

This is one of the most famous Russian museums of contemporary art outside Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was founded back in 2009 and, at the end of 2023, it moved to a new permanent building on Krisanova Street.

The museum's collection includes over 1,500 works by 20th-21st century artists and sculptors, including Nikolay Polissky (founder of the ‘Nikola Lenivets Art Park’). The museum is also famous for its art installations around the city, including ‘Happiness is Just Around the Corner’ by Boris Matrosov.