The Moscow Zoo Museum is located in the most beautiful and oldest building on the territory of the zoo. This is a "stone pavilion for ungulates on 2 floors", built in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. You saw it for sure: the giraffe Samson lives on the first floor, and the Museum of the History of the Moscow Zoo is located on the second floor. Entrance to the museum is free! There are no animals here, but it is very interesting here!
The lobby displays the emblems of the zoos of the world, of which there are already more than 10 thousand
Each zoo has its own memorable, unlike the others, emblem
The Museum of the History of the Zoo is a dynamically developing exposition and exhibition project of the Moscow Zoo GAU, which was formed in 2008-2015 as a Visit Center and then grew into a unique educational museum exposition.
The desire to show the complex and interesting life of zoos "from the inside" prompted the employees of the Moscow Zoo to create a Visit Center in 2008, the exposition of which allows you to look at the relationship between humans and wild animals as a continuous process - from hunting and use as food, clothing, housing, from temporary keeping in primitive pens - before breeding in captivity in order to preserve the wild fauna on Earth, as a biological and aesthetic value.
In the central hall of the exposition, three main themes are intertwined: the relationship between humans and animals, the creation and functioning of zoos, and the history of the Moscow Zoo.
There are four columns in the hall, each of which carries a certain load and tells about what is around it.
The first column tells about the ancient civilization, in particular Egypt. It tells about the collection of animals that were created by the ancient Egyptian, Roman and Greek rulers. Animals at that time were used only for food. Later they began to use animal skins for clothing and housing.
Animals were used as human helpers, such as picking fruit from trees. Animals were used for military purposes, as well as for entertainment - animal fights.
The layout of the Colosseum, everything was done according to old books, it turned out to be quite difficult to complete
The era of geographical discoveries gave impetus to the emergence of zoos in our modern sense.
The showcase is dedicated to the Moscow Zoo. Photographs of the founders, pavilions of the zoo are presented. Exhibited coins 10, 20.50 kopecks. In those years, on different days, ticket prices were different. On the day when the entrance cost 50 kopecks, the wealthy public came to them, it was so calmer to walk around the zoo.
In the 1890s, buildings appeared that still exist on the territory of the zoo - the dovecote building, the museum building
From the archives: facade of the building of the Moscow Zoo Museum
Another column is dedicated to European zoos, which the creators of the Moscow Zoo visited and emphasized something from what they saw to create our zoo.
The first European zoo opened in 1752 - the Vienna Zoo
In 1857, A.P. Bogdanov submitted a report “On the adoption of measures to arrange a zoological garden” to the Committee for Acclimatization. Being on a business trip abroad, he, on behalf of the Committee, examined the zoological gardens of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Ghent and Harlem. The study of the structure of the zoological gardens of Europe, their layout, the architecture of the pavilions, the principles of keeping animals formed the basis for the creation of the Moscow Zoological Garden.
The project was initiated by Vladimir Vladimirovich Spitsin, and the authors were L.V. Egorova, one of the oldest employees of the zoo, I.L. Kostina, T.E. Baluyan, N.V. Karpov, V.P. Sheveleva, E.Ya. Migunova, T.V. Voronina, N.R. Rubinshtein and other employees of the zoo, as well as the architect N.I. in the museum.
The zoo's first animals are large animals donated by patrons.
One of the first animals of the zoo, probably can be considered - the wallaby kangaroo.
The territory for the zoo has already been chosen, but has not yet been organized (there were no buildings and fences). While all this was being done, the animals were placed in the yards of the employees of the acclimatization society, in general, the acclimatization society began to create a zoo. The wallaby kangaroo lived at the home of Professor Usov, one of the creators of the zoo, and slept on his bed. It was a completely tame kangaroo.
After the revolution, there were hard times for the zoo, there were big problems with food, there was nothing to drown. Moscow was getting cold and starving and, accordingly, the zoo also suffered, but survived. Difficult times for the zoo were in the 30s, at that time many were afraid of a car driving up to the entrance. Many zoo employees were repressed.
During the war, it was a very difficult time for the zoo, by the way, during the Second World War, the zoo practically did not close. Maybe there were several days, during the most powerful raids and bombings.
All employees were on duty on the roofs of the zoo pavilions these days. Many employees lived on the territory of the zoo. There was such a family named Zakusilo. They lived on the territory of the zoo, during the raid they were both on the roof of the pavilion dropping incendiary bombs. They saw how the bomb hit their house and no one was on duty there, their main task was to save the animals.
Two side halls tell only about the Moscow Zoo.
the museum will be interesting for both children and their parents
All expositions are decorated with animalistic works
The museum has some biological objects, but only those that the animals themselves have already lost
For example, an elephant lost a tooth, sawed off its horns, musk ox fur. The museum does not keep stuffed animals.
The main gates of the zoo have become the hallmark of the Moscow zoo and the Presnya district
The main entrance of the zoo in different years
In the center of the museum is a large model of the Moscow Zoo
Zoo schemes in different years
The pride of the museum - poster dated May 22, 1949. It is in the same frame as in 1949
When Yuri Luzhkov came to the zoo for the first time with his little daughter and saw the deplorable state of the zoo... he said that we were urgently starting reconstruction. The completion of this reconstruction is now taking place.
There are still a lot of interesting things in the museum, of course it is better to go in and see for yourself :)
I would like to say a huge thank you for the work in opening the museum of the Moscow Zoo - Natalya Ivanovna, the artist who came up with the design of the museum, as well as the author of the exhibition, Irina Kostina
Come with the whole family to the museum and if you like it, write your review about the museum in the book of honored guests
The clue - Theater House January 14th, 2017
The theater house, and now the house at number 13, standing on the bend of the Zoological street, was built according to the sketch of the artist V.D. Polenov. From 1904 to 1918, Polenov lived in an old estate on Sadovo-Kudrinskaya Street, 7. In 1915, the artist noticed an empty plot of the peasant Mironov in the neighborhood. The buyer of the site was the Moscow Society of People's Universities, in which Polenov led the Section for Assistance in the Construction of Village, Factory and School Theaters.
The building was designed by architect O.O. Shishkovsky and opened on December 29, 1916 in the presence of A.A. Bakhrushina, S.I. Mamontova, G.S. Burdzhalov, Polenov himself and many other famous cultural figures. This house housed scenery and costume workshops, scenery warehouses, props, props, a theater library and a hall for demonstration performances, which were staged by Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov himself.
At an extraordinary meeting of the Section for Assistance in the Arrangement of Village and Factory Theaters, it was decided to express gratitude for the generous gift, to ask the artist "to allow us to name the future building of the Section the House named after Academician Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov." The artist himself continued to call him simply Section.
The stylistic features of the house, its unusual three-dimensional structure suggest that the architectural design was based on sketches by V.D. Polenov. In the original forms of the building, one can feel the love for Western European medieval architecture inherent in the early projects of the artist.
V.D. Polenov. House of theatrical education in Moscow. Completed building project. Museum-reserve V.D. Polenova
Over the years, the house has lost its original façade, the large plane of which was enlivened by three tall Gothic windows and a balcony. Now there is no balcony, many new windows have been pierced, the old ones have been blocked up. Previously, he had his own expressive face, now in the register of historical and cultural monuments he is listed as a valuable city-forming object.
In Soviet times, the Central Demonstration Theater of the Teo Glavpolitprosveta was located here, for which in 1921 Sergei Eisenstein, together with Sergei Yutkevich, designed the play "Macbeth" based on the play by William Shakespeare. The play premiered on April 25, 1922.
In 1928, a fire broke out in the building, destroying Polenov's scenery and almost all theatrical property. In the 1930s, the building housed an industrial plant.
The building was badly damaged during the reconstruction, however, the main compositional articulations and individual architectural elements of decor are still visible on the facades - a corner tower with fragments of decor, a crenate cornice, and architraves of embedded window and door openings.
In 2009, the threat of destruction loomed over the Theater House - they were going to build the Federal Museum of Modern Art in its place. The "Polenovskiy" house was supposed to be part of the new complex, retaining only part of its facades.
Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the State Center for Contemporary Art. Version until 2012 Zoological street, vl. 13
It ended with the fact that now the National Center for Contemporary Art is located here.
This center also occupies the neighboring building on Zoological Street - "Theater House".
Initially, Zoological Street was called Medynka. It is believed that here in the 17th century there was a honey yard of the palace village of Voskresenskoye. However, the area around the street was called both Medynka and Medyntsevy Gory. Therefore, it is possible that the name of the area was given by the surname of the landowners - merchants Medyntsevs.
The street received its modern name after the nearby Zoological Garden, the modern Zoo, was founded in 1864. It stretched from Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street to Krasina Street. In 1951, Bubninsky and Kabanikhinsky lanes were included in the street, which arose at the beginning of the 20th century on the site of the Bubna and Kabanikha rivers, enclosed in underground pipes. Now on Zoological Street next to the theater house there is a service entrance to the Moscow Zoo.
Sources of information:
Wikipedia,
Probably, there are cowardly pilots or cheerful moneylenders. But people have a different idea of their characters. And as a rule, it is justified. It is not entirely clear whether the profession molds a person, or whether one likes the job only with a certain mental state, or maybe both affect, but between the work and the character of people, as the poet argued, “there are subtle powerful connections.”
The beloved and traditional Jules Verne hero, selflessly hunting for butterflies, kind and eccentric, bold and naive, full of all kinds of knowledge, disinterested and enthusiastic, gives an accurate idea of the type of taxonomist. The more you get to know people of this profession, the more often it seems that a taxonomist is not just a profession, but also a personality trait, and that one cannot work as a taxonomist, one can only be one.
The contribution of domestic taxonomists to the classification system is enormous. A distinctive feature of the work of our scientists is a collective style. It is difficult to single out someone personally in the remarkable army of taxonomists, but it is easy to name the institution with which the world fame of Russian zoological systematics is connected - this is ZIN. It became a scientific institute only during the years of Soviet power. Before that, it was just a Zoological Museum, and even earlier - part of the famous Peter's Kunstkamera. Now they, ancestor and descendant, are located side by side in the most charming part of Vasilevsky Island, near the rostral columns, from where the Neva ensembles are so picturesquely visible, the beauty of which is impossible to get used to.
Here, to the first house of the University embankment, two completely different streams of people stretch in the morning. One, numerous and sonorous, spreads over the museum floor. Bypassing the backbone of a giant whale, schoolchildren freeze in front of the color splendor of a collection of tropical butterflies or a stuffed huge anaconda. Another stream, adults and purposeful people, indifferently bypassing the museum splendor, disappears into the endless corridor of the Zoological Institute. These are scientists.
The science of "Systematics" has a very definite smell. The sharp naphthalene-formalin spirit soaked forever the walls of the zoocorridor, densely packed with cabinets. They contain collections that are among the five richest in the world, and books.
The second purely outward feature of taxonomy is the abundance of old books. Luxurious folios, in leather and morocco, with gold embossing and marble trim, make the institutional corridor look like a bibliophile's office or a museum collection of rarities. The fact is that books on systematics do not get old. Infinitely renewing and expanding, this discipline preserves as working material everything useful that was done by its predecessors. Unlike other sciences, classical works are not petrified here, but are themselves the raw material for the next steps. The systematic tree is forever green!
And perhaps the feeling of history, continuity is especially deeply realized in the old building of the St. Petersburg customs, adapted for the Zoological Museum, precisely because the pundits of the past remain rivals in science today. From the portraits hanging in the lobby, they are closely following the battles of modern biologists, as if urging: "You, the current ones, come on!". Among them is Peter Pallas, curator of the collections of the Kunstkamera, which laid the foundation for the Zoological Museum.
The son of a German and a Frenchwoman, Pallas found his true homeland in Russia, where he was invited by Catherine II. Immediately after arrival, a new member of the academy goes on a long journey. Exploring the banks of the Volga and Yaik, the slopes of the Ural Mountains and Altai, the brave explorer reaches the Chinese border. Returning back through the Caucasus, Pallas brought to the capital such a quantity of materials that he did not have enough time to process them all his life. He first described the musk deer, wolverine, sable... New species of birds, reptiles, fish, molluscs, worms, zoophytes became known to European scientists thanks to his work. The rodents alone provided a volume of material. The academician publishes "Russian Flora" in two thick volumes and immediately takes on "Russian Fauna". But zoological work was not the most significant part of his research. Articles on geography, climatology, ethnography come out one after another. Pallas collaborates in the topographic department, is approved by the historiographer of the Admiralty Colleges, is busy studying the Crimean peninsula ...
The highly experienced Cuvier finished the word about Pallas like this: “He always lived like a real scientist, occupied only with the search for truth, and did not pay much attention to everything else ... The more experience you gain, the more convinced you are that this is the only way to preserve both the purity of conscience and peace!"
It can perhaps be argued that genuine scientific interest and disinterestedness are the professional traits of taxonomists. What makes a person, hunched over a binocular, day after day study the genital organs of countless beetles impaled on a pin? No resounding success or glory is foreseen.
Overwhelmed with work, Pallas did not have time to create a Zoological Museum, and in the basement of the Kunstkamera, destroyed by dampness and moths, the collections collected by the expeditions of Lepekhin and many other explorers perished.
In August 1828, the Academy of Sciences appointed Karl Maksimovich Baer as director of the museum. In his Autobiography, he describes his impressions of this institution as follows:
“The Zoological Museum, located in two large halls in the building of the old Kunstkamera, as it was called, still gave the impression of the former Cabinet of Curiosities. Huge snakes and other creatures attached to the walls and ceiling seemed to be crawling along them, striking the visitors... My first thought when examining the Kunstkamera was this: remove the zoological collections from here, since the type of ancient institution is too deeply rooted here. I was further strengthened in this thought by seeing that the systematic names of the mammals, which were attached to movable stands, were partly confused. Having arranged them properly, I found them again two days later in their original places. It was the work of the so-called "caretaker" of the museum, a former servant of Pallas, who had some idea of stuffing, but had no idea about zoological systematics.
Two years have passed. Academician Baer, without creating a museum, left St. Petersburg, and now his own collections, collected in the north of Russia, are rotting in the storerooms.
The Zoological Museum was officially opened on July 4, 1832. Its founder and first director was Fyodor Fyodorovich Brandt. For almost a year he was engaged in the organization of the museum, giving him all his strength and knowledge. When the newly appointed director first came to the Kunstkamera, there was a clear progress in the museum business: instead of one caretaker, there were four employees on the staff ...
The exhibits of the Kunstkamera gave a lot of useful information. True, there were rarities, for example, the fossil rhinoceros described by Pallas, and the mammoth described by Brandt himself, but on the other hand, completely non-exotic, but necessary species were absent.
In 1875, when N. M. Przhevalsky was processing ornithological material obtained during his first trip to Central Asia, he needed an ordinary sparrow for comparison. It turned out that there is not a single specimen of a sparrow in the collection of the Zoological Museum. I had to specially prepare several sparrows caught in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.
For a young museum, it was difficult to find a better director than Brandt. He was a scientist of boundless erudition. Fedor Fedorovich began his scientific activity as a physician, and quite successfully: he became a doctor of medical and surgical sciences. But then his attention was attracted alternately by botany, anatomy, and zoology. Moreover, he did not change his profession, but expanded the range of his activities. He combined his managerial efforts with lecturing on zoology at the Main Pedagogical Institute, a course in anatomy at the Medico-Surgical Academy, inspector work at the Mariinsky Institute and presidential duties in the Russian Entomological Society.
It is rather difficult to outline the range of his interests, since Brandt was a member of over 70 scientific institutions, both Russian and foreign. Three years before his death, when the 50th anniversary of his doctorate was celebrated, he was presented with a printed list of his scientific works. It took 52 pages. There was a description of the collections collected by F. P. Litke, works on beavers, a monograph on sturgeons, works on botany, paleontology, comparative anatomy, philology and, of course, taxonomy.
For almost half a century, until his death, he headed the Brand Zoological Museum, replenishing and systematizing its collections.
In the rays of this glory, the modest name of the preparator of the Zoological Museum, Ilya Gavrilovich Voznesensky, undeservedly faded. Sent by Brandt to collect collections in Russian America, he traveled all over Alaska for almost ten years. Kuril Islands, Kamchatka. Voznesensky was not a pioneer, but the material he collected, as it became clear later, was a genuine discovery of those places where a meticulous and industrious researcher came. Academician Brandt argued that "there is no zoological work on Eastern Siberia and our former North American colonies in which the name of Voznesensky would not be gratefully mentioned."
The collections he collected are becoming more valuable year by year. Today, not only zoologists refer to it, but also historians, ethnographers, botanists, anthropologists, geologists, and demographers. One hundred and fifty boxes of ethnographic materials sent to the Academy, about four thousand animals dissected by Voznesensky, and four hundred new species discovered by him - this is a wealth that "surpasses all probability," as Academician A. A. Shtraukh, who replaced Brandt in his post, wrote.
In summer, the ZIN laboratories are semi-desert: biologists go to the field. Among them are taxonomists who collect materials for their group. Even today the field means sometimes a difficult journey, and in the past it was a rather dangerous undertaking, and the taxonomist often walked with a net in one hand and a rifle in the other. Gathering a collection for the museum, P.P. Semenov-Tian-Shansky successfully penetrated the heart of Asia, but his predecessor Schlagintwein was executed in Kashgar, and Severtsov was captured by the Yuokands. The work of a taxonomist often turned out to be akin to the work of a geologist, topographer, hunter.
When the sharp, raspy voice of Grigory Efimovich Grum-Grzhimailo, a well-known expert on butterflies, was heard in the endless corridor of the ZIN, zoologists broke away from their binoculars and determinants and went to listen to stories about Bukhara, the Pamirs or Western China, through which he wandered from 1885 to 1890. Famous the traveler bore the joking nickname of the European's Leg, as he got into such a wilderness where no explorer had ever fallen before him.
No less commotion was caused by the appearance of the quiet and modest Grigory Nikolaevich Potanin, who always came with his small and thin wife Alexandra Viktorovna, a faithful companion in his difficult campaigns. She died in her husband's arms during his fourth expedition to China in 1892.
Ivan Dementsvich Chersky was also a long-term employee of the Zoological Museum. Exiled to Siberia for participation in the Polish uprising, he fell in love with this harsh land and devoted his whole life to it. Tall, slender, wearing the same old jacket and worn-out patched boots, this man aroused involuntary respect from everyone both for his courage and for his vast knowledge in geology, paleontology and geography, obtained on his own.
Perhaps there is a Muse of Systematics, close to her more famous friends. How else to explain that among the people who have devoted themselves to this cause, there are so many artistically gifted individuals? The first work of Karl Baer printed in Russia was a cantata in honor of the end of the Patriotic War of 1812. N. Polezhaev translated Heine, played the piano superbly and wrote romances that were popular in his time. Professor of Zoology, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR N. Kholodkovsky is probably better known as a translator of Milton, Byron, Goethe. His translation of Faust remains unsurpassed. The son of a famous traveler, a long-term employee of the ZIN, who described 800 species and 100 genera, A.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky wrote poetry, translated Horace, published several articles about Pushkin. He used his special knowledge to analyze poetic texts, because many masters make botanical errors. For example, in Lermontov's work, the "yellowing field is agitated" and the lily of the valley blooms at the same time. The elder brother of the leading entomologist ZIN, himself a major entomologist, Alexei. Nikolaevich Kirichenko was a passionate photographer, fond of archeology and architecture. He made measurements and photographs of the ruins of the Termez monuments of the 11th century BC. e. The number of such examples can easily be multiplied. One of the directors of the ZIN, Academician E. N. Pavlovsky, even wrote a special book on this topic, Poetry, Science and Scientists.
Every week, a colored scattering of biological journals falls out on the long table of the ZIN "ovsky library, and researchers rummage through them, looking for fresh publications of "rivals".
The profession of systematist is one of those with which it is difficult to leave. Therefore, there have always been many patriarchs in ZIN. Among them, one should name a person who gave his whole life to the institute and died within its walls, ichthyologist Pyotr Yulievich Schmidt. He was called "medium" in contrast to the "big" - academician-paleontologist F. B. Schmidt, very large and deep-pitched, and "small" - the librarian of the Zoological Museum.
Schmidt's predecessor in the ichthyological department, S. M. Gertsenshtein, also belongs to the veterans of the institute. His erudition was inexhaustible. Extremely modest, unusually kind, always ready to help anyone who turned to him with a question, he was a common favorite. But his appearance was unsightly: stooped, with a huge hooked nose. Professor Nikolsky recalls that once, when Gertsenstein was turning stones on the shore of the White Sea in excitement in search of coastal animals, passing fishermen mistook him for a devil and shouted: “Fuck you, evil spirit!”
But perhaps Alexander Alexandrovich Shtakelberg, who had been collecting and systematizing flies for more than sixty years, and the head of the malaria commission, worked for ZIN the longest. For many years he was the editor of the volumes "Fauna of the USSR" and "Determinants" published by the Institute. Before his eyes, not only the Zoological Museum, but the whole biological science has changed. At the beginning of the century, all the scientific staff of the museum gathered to “drink tea” during a break. There were about ten of them. And all the zoologists in the country, according to statistics, there were 406.
Now /1990/ there are more of them only in one ZIN. And there are about five thousand zoologists in the Union. And here's what's interesting. Despite this rapid growth, zoologists in the total number of scientific workers in the biological direction account for ten times less than before the revolution. This means that other biological disciplines are developing even more rapidly.
From 1907 to 1971 Alexander Nikolaevich Kirichenko worked at ZIN. Nothing prevented him from fulfilling the norm every day: to identify 80-200 insects. In besieged Leningrad, he remained at the head of the ZIN. Kirichenko described 34 new genera and 223 species, one genus and about 30 species were named after him. About one hundred and thirty scientific works belong to his pen, among which are fundamental ones - two volumes "Fauna of Russia" and a reference book for all hemipterologists "Key to Hemiptera", continuing the work of Oshanin. Thanks to the efforts of Alexander Nikolaevich, the stock collection of bedbugs in ZIN is the best in the world. What did Kirichenko not do to replenish it! He traded insects for stamps, begged diplomatic couriers to collect them in exotic countries, and corresponded with Russian people who, by the will of fate, were abandoned in different parts of the world. F. G. Dobzhansky collected bedbugs for Kirichenko in North America, A. Ogloblin in Argentina, G. Olsufiev in Madagascar. There are still legends about his memory in ZIN...
Chekhovskaya T.P., Shcherbakov R.L. 1990 The Stunning Variety of Life, 64-77
