The Paris Gallery of Mineralogy and Geology compared with the Fersman Museum

Yes, my favourite museum in Moscow is still the Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Neskuchny Garden.

Let us compare it with the Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie in the Jardin des plantes in Paris, which occupies a building of somewhat grander proportions, yet looks almost like the Fersman Museum.

The Paris Galerie de Minéralogie was built in 1836, with a museum purpose from the outset, while the Mineralogical Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which incidentally received its museum status in the same year, 1836, is housed in the riding school of Count Orlov, later used as quarters for a cavalry squadron and rebuilt into something close to its present appearance in 1844. The Parisian mineral collection, however, is far older than ours, which was founded in 1716 as the mineralogical cabinet of the Kunstkamera, on the basis of an extensive collection of 1195 mineral specimens purchased in Danzig from the doctor of medicine Gottwald. The Parisian collection goes back to the early seventeenth century: it was established in 1625 with a utilitarian medical purpose, to serve the needs of the royal household.

Inside, the two museums are very much alike. The same antique wooden display cases, the same arched windows and high ceilings. In places, incidentally, even the same crumbling plaster in the corners.