Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow awaits visitors after ceiling collapse

The museum needs help. One of my favourite museums in Moscow, the Fersman Mineralogical Museum of the Academy of Sciences, has had a hard time of it since part of its ceiling collapsed last year, in a building that is, if you please, a cultural heritage site of federal significance. The museum was closed for a long time. The repairs are not yet complete, and there are reports that the money has run short. What can be done to help? Come and visit, and give your attention to a remarkable collection.

Come to the Mineralogical Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences at 18-2 Leninsky Prospekt. Here is displayed one of the oldest museum collections in Russia, dating back to the days of Peter the Great: a collection of minerals that in 1716 became the core of the Mineral Cabinet of the Kunstkamera, and in 1836 was formally transformed into a separate Mineralogical Museum. The museum moved to Moscow in 1934 and has stood ever since a couple of steps from Leninsky Prospekt and the Neskuchny Garden, in Count Orlov's riding school. Since 1956 it has borne the name of the eminent scholar, collector and museum man, Academician Alexander Fersman.

The museum is, in fact, more than 300 years old, yet because of the difficulties with the repairs it still cannot function in full. Every visit will matter, so come yourself and bring your friends. The museum has a unique shop with incomparable mineral specimens. It is the very place in Moscow where you can buy a piece of a meteorite.

Besides the astonishing stones, the building itself deserves attention, comparable in beauty to the most memorable museum venues in the world.