Things to do in Moscow, Central Russia: The Best Natural History Museums

The State Darwin Museum was established in 1907 by A.F. Kots as educational museum at the Moscow Higher Women's Courses. It was the first museum of biological evolution in the world. Today the State Darwin Museum is: The largest museum of natural science that occupies 3 buildings with the total area more than 20 000 sq. m; Modern exposition illustrating different evolution processes (5 000 sq. m); Collections including about 400 000 exhibits; More than 50 exhibitions a year in exhibition halls with the total area about 1000 sq. m; More than 600 000 visitors a year; Organization of scientific conferences and seminars, ecological and family festivals; Extensive publishing and educational activities; Introduction of the latest museum technologies. At the "Intermuseum" festival in 2007 and in 2017 the Darwin Museum was recognized as the best museum of the year and was awarded the Grand Prix.

The Orlov Paleontological Museum is a part of the Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. The museum exposition occupies five main halls. Connected by crossings, they form a closed sequence, which begins and ends by a tower with a ceramic panel "Tree of Life". It is the biggest art decoration of the museum. All halls of the museum, except for the introductory one, are devoted to particular eras of geologic history of the Earth. The introductory hall is followed by the hall of Precambrian and Early Paleozoic, and then, by turns, halls of the Late Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. The exposition of the museum allows to trace all main stages of life evolution on the Earth: from the fossil evidences of vital activity of the earliest bacteria aged as about 1,5 billion years, to the animals of Ice Age, the contemporaries of the ancient man. Every year it is visited by over 250 000 people and about half of them are children of school and preschool age.

Coral Truck is a new type of mobile museum. It is also a new form of human-nature communication. Build on modern technologies and our passion to marine biology and conservation, Coral-Truck brings interesting stories from coral reef to the place where you live.