Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The Pushkin Museum is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located opposite the Church of Christ the Saviour and has amassed more than 600,000 artworks since its inauguration in 1912.

The museum was envisaged as an education institution and originally held a world class collection of Egyptian relics and an array of plaster casts of sculptural masterpieces.

When, in 1918, the Russian capital was moved to Moscow the Soviet government decided to move thousands of pieces of art from St Petersburg's Hermitage Museum to Moscow and the museum also received the entire collection of Western art from the Museum Roumjantsev. Later Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings were added from the State Museum of New Western Art.

The museum's name is somewhat misleading as it has no connection at all with the famous Russian post Alexander Pushkin. The museum underwent several name changes before finally being given the name it has today to honour the memory of Pushkin in 1937, 100 years after his death.

The above picture shows the top of the pillars that stand proudly at the front of the main building of the museum. The museum is actually made up of this main building plus three neighbouring buildings.