The Puppet Museum in St. Petersburg. Museum of unique dolls: photos and reviews of tourists

There is such an amazing place, visiting which, again you begin to believe in a fairy tale. Nothing special, like, and does not happen. You'll just find out where the magic lives. I like this place and children, because their favorite heroes live here. For a child to come here means to be a living participant in an amazing story, which will then be seen for a long time in colored dreams. What is this magic place and how hard it is to find a way to it? It's just a museum of dolls. And to find it in St. Petersburg is easy.

Pages of History

In St. Petersburg, the most kind and hospitable museum was opened in 1998. Then his exhibits were taken from several collections of people who are not indifferent to the dolls. The exhibition expanded over time: ancient dolls were found in the museum, found during excavations, their works were given by city craftsmen and art students. To date, the Puppet Museum in St. Petersburg has collected more than 40,000 exhibits under its roof.

What dolls live in the museum?

The inhabitants of this amazing museum are very different. There are ancient and modern dolls, gambling and interior, traditional and most unusual. That's why you can come here with family, and with older friends - it will be interesting in any company.

By the way, there is in this museum one mysterious room, where only adults are permitted to enter. This is a room for frivolous dolls. Agree, this is already interesting: not every museum of dolls can boast such a "twist".

About the exhibition more

There are eight thematic halls in the museum. Exhibits in them are exhibited for a reason, their location is not unsystematic. They are grouped to participate in theatrical scenes that show the viewer fragments of history, real life or fairy-tale subjects.

Acquaintance with the exhibition begins with a hall in which dolls in national costumes show how the holidays in Russia were held, what were the traditions and rituals. Here you can see how they celebrated the Nativity of Christ, how they thought about Christmas Eve and how they met Ivan Kupala. In addition, there live whole puppet families, big and friendly.

Guests in the fairy-tale hall are greeted with heroes of Russian and foreign magic stories, both folk and author's. The exposition is organized so that the dolls are arranged in a spiral. Thus, the viewer plunges into the tale deeper and deeper.

Hall "Forest Kingdom" - a place where animals and mystical inhabitants of fairy tales and legends gathered. The play of light and shadow creates corners of a sunny birch grove and a dark impassable thicket. Here the heroes are kind and not very good. All of them are from different stories, but, nevertheless, they get on well together, so that the hall looks very harmonious.

"The departed Russia" is an exposition of ceremonial dolls. They are made of straw and cloth, dressed in traditional folk costumes. They show how our ancestors lived. At the center of this exhibition is the symbolic Tree of Life as a symbol of everything pure and holy, as people believed, and also the infinity of being.

"Pride and Glory of the Fatherland" - an exhibition that was initially temporary, but a few years ago the Puppet Museum in St. Petersburg opened it as a permanent one. Here are dolls-heroes and staunch tin soldiers, portrait dolls of real heroes of historical battles.

The theater hall has sheltered dolls that ever really participated in performances or were made by masters in certain stylistic frameworks. Here growth puppets and puppets, "actors" of the shadow theater and finger toys, which so often can hold as exhibits a small museum of dolls in the kindergarten of any provincial town.

The hall of the interior doll shows salon characters. These are theatrical dolls, and heroes of classical literature or fine arts. They are made of papier-mâché and textiles.

Gallery "Petersburg Pershpektiva" tells about the history of the glorious city on the Neva. Here live porcelain Romanovs, literary characters and heroes of our time: Evgeni Plushenko, Nikolai Valuev and simple intelligent grandmother.

And, of course, we can not fail to mention heroes who praise love and worship Eros. These are frivolous dolls from the exhibition hall of the same name. Probably, it is still one of the reasons why the St. Petersburg Museum is a museum of unique dolls. But, of course, its unusualness is not only in this.

Children's programs in the museum

This museum is primarily a children's museum of dolls. The abundance of programs for children in it is amazing.

First, you can celebrate your birthday here. Little guests get acquainted with dolls and even learn to do them themselves. A meeting with a real hero of a fairy tale and a festive tea party are also proposed. And also a souvenir is supposed to be given as a gift from the museum.

Secondly, museum staff often conduct field trips. They come to visit students, pupils of boarding schools and orphanages and talk about the museum, exhibitions and history of dolls. There are also conducted on-site master classes, where children are taught to make dolls by their own hands. In addition, the visiting program assumes that viewers will be able to view the mini-museum. Dolls in it, of course, are not all presented, but such an exhibition is still very interesting.

And, thirdly, the museum holds game quests for groups of small visitors.

There are other holidays celebrated here: they arrange family events, competitions and themed games, etc.

What else offers a museum of unique dolls

On the second floor of the museum there are real craft workshops. In one of them colorful puppets are born in national costumes, in the other - secular characters. And you can look at the creation process if you come on an excursion.

Excursions here are held as individual and group, in Russian and English, general and thematic. In addition, the Museum of Puppets offers a unique program - an excursion in verse. There is an opportunity to download a simple application on your smartphone and listen to an audio guide tour.

The museum holds privileged excursions for children from large families.

About privileges

And there are a lot of them here. Employees of museums and pensioners, formerly working in them, journalists, writers and cultural figures, invalids of the third group, pass to the museum of puppets on preferential tickets.

In addition, free visits for children under three years old, handicapped children, children's homes, large families (including both parents), art students, veterans of war and blockade workers are practiced here.

Monday in the museum is a preferential day. Schoolchildren, students and pensioners can come to the exhibition for free.

Agree, this abundance of discounts is impressive. Not every museum cares so much about its visitors.

Price policy

A ticket for one adult in the museum costs 300 rubles, for schoolchildren, students and pensioners, half the amount - 150 rubles. A ticket for children from three years old (preschoolers) costs 100 rubles.

Preferential visit also takes place at a ticket price of 100 rubles.

How to get to the museum

The exposition of the most beautiful dolls can be seen at: Kama street, house 8. You can get there by taxi from the metro station "Vasileostrovskaya". The museum operates from 10 am to 6 pm, without days off.

In conclusion

No matter how far you feel from childhood, fairy tales and magic, this museum will be able to interest you, and its visit will not leave you indifferent. If you even just go in, take a look at the puppet faces, look at the outfits and look at the situations in which these little heroes live day by day, you can no longer treat the dolls indifferently. You will permeate with a special atmosphere of magic and, perhaps, as in childhood, believe that dolls come to life at night.

Leave a short note in your diary to "visit the St. Petersburg Dolls Museum", cut out a day in the work schedule, and boldly go to a meeting with a fairy tale.