Saint Petersburg Zoological Museum

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The Saint Petersburg Zoological Museum

The Zoological Museum of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences ( Russian Зоологический музей Зоологического института РАН ) in Saint Petersburg is the oldest zoological museum in Russia and one of the world's largest zoological museums with 30,000 exhibits. The museum building is located on the Universitetskaja naberschnaja ( Университетская набережная ) on the eastern tip (Strelka) of Vasilyevsky Island and is directly opposite the Castle Bridge .

history

Blue whale skeleton ( Balaenoptera musculus ) in the first room of the museum
Skeleton of an ancient mammoth in the third room
Fish collection in the second room

In 1724 Peter the Great founded the first Russian museum with the Kunstkammer . In addition to anthropological and ethnological collections, the Kunstkammer also housed numerous zoological exhibits. Most of these zoological exhibits were destroyed or badly damaged by a fire in the Kunstkammer in 1747. By outsourcing the zoological collections, the St. Petersburg Zoological Museum was created in the museum wing of the building of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1832. The first director was the German zoologist and academician Johann Friedrich von Brandt . As a result of numerous Russian expeditions, such as Alexander von Nordmann's Caucasus expedition, Karl Ernst von Baer's expeditions to Novaya Zemlya and Lapland , the nine-year Ilya Vosnesenskis expedition to the Far East , Alaska and California, and Alexander Theodor von Middendorff's and Leopold von Schrencks' expeditions and Alexei Severzov's to Siberia , the museum's collection increased significantly in the 19th century. In addition to the expeditions, the museum expanded its collections by purchasing exhibits and donations. While the zoological collection was housed in three halls when the museum was founded, the museum's fund increased to 40,000 exhibits by 1882, which were housed in 32 halls.

In the course of exploring Central Asia in the second half of the 19th century by explorers such as Nikolai Prschewalski , Vsevolod Roborowski , Michail Pewzow and the brothers Michail and Grigori Grum-Grschimailo , the zoological holdings of the museum were again greatly expanded. This made an expansion of the exhibition space necessary, so that in the early 1890s it was decided to move the museum to the nearby former department store of the Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange. On January 6th, July / January 19, 1901 greg. The permanent collection was opened to visitors for the first time during a festive opening.

After the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, the Zoological Museum began organizing expeditions again, such as the hydrobiological expedition in Olonez Governorate by Gleb Vereshchangin , the expedition of the aquatic fauna of the Far East by Andrei Martynov , the expedition to Tuva and to Mongolia by Arkadi Tagarinow , the expedition to Yakutia by Alexei Ivanov and Valentin Bianki and the parasitological expeditions by Yevgeny Pavlovsky .

In 1930 the Zoological Museum, where scientific research has always been carried out, became part of the Soviet Academy of Sciences as the Zoological Institute . Since then, only the exhibition collection of the zoological institute that is accessible to visitors has been referred to as the zoological museum. During the German-Soviet war and the siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944, the holdings, in contrast to the holdings of the Hermitage, were not evacuated to other cities, but instead moved to the basement. The exhibits in the permanent collection remained in the exhibition rooms. Despite multiple shelling and lack of heating, the building and its collections were only slightly damaged during this time. In 1945 the Zoological Museum was reopened.

Directors of the museum

exhibition

Stuffed thylacine wolf ( Thylacinus cynocephalus ) in the third room of the museum

The exhibition at the Zoological Museum currently comprises more than 30,000 exhibits, making it one of the three largest zoological museum exhibitions in the world. Most of the vertebrates on display are stuffed. The museum has its own taxidermy workshop for this purpose .

The museum is divided into three exhibition halls.

In the first exhibition room are the former art chamber exhibits from the 18th and 19th centuries that were collected under Peter the Great. In addition to two stuffed dogs and a horse ( Linsetta ) of Peter the Great, as well as stuffed walruses and seals , this part of the collection includes the complete 27-meter-long skeleton of a blue whale , which stranded on a sandbank near the Belgian Ostend in 1827 and was donated to the museum in 1856. The gallery of the first exhibition room houses the 6500 species of insect exhibition .

The elongated halls two and three of the museum are on the left of the first exhibition room. The exhibits are systematically arranged in them. A large number of the prepared animals can be seen here in dioramas in their natural biotope . The second room houses the fish collection with 650 species on display.

The third room houses the majority of the mammal exhibition comprising 704 species and 1493 exhibits. Part of this exhibition are some rare exhibits from extinct species, such as the thylacine and the Steller's manatee . The museum is particularly well-known for the woolly mammoth exhibits, some of which are very well preserved ( Adam's mammoth , Dima , Berjosowka mammoth ).

literature

  • Skarlato OA (Red.): Zoologičeskij institut. 150 let. , «Nauka», Leningrad 1982 / Скарлато О. А. (ред.): Зоологический институт. 150 лет. , «Наука», Ленинград 1982
  • Naumov DV: Zoologičeskij muzej TO SSSR. , Leningrad 1980 / Наумов Д.В .: Зоологический музей АН СССР. , Ленинград 1980
  • Potapova RL (Red.): Zoologičeskij muzej: Putevoditel ' , Paritet, 2002 / Потапова Р.Л. (ред.): Зоологический музей: Путеводитель , Паритет, 2002, ISBN 9785934371242

Web links

Commons : Saint Petersburg Zoological Museum  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Exhibition of the Zoological Museum (Russian); Reviewed May 29, 2014
  2. ↑ a b c History of the Zoological Museum (Russian); Reviewed May 29, 2014
  3. ↑ a b c d Alimov AF, Tanasijčuk VN, Stepan'janc SD: Kollekcii Zoologičeskogo instituta Rossijskoj Akademii nauk - osnova dlja izučenija vidovogo raznoobrazija. , Zoologičeskij žurnal, Volume 78, N9, 1999, pages 1027 to 1047 / Алимов А.Ф., Танасийчук В.Н., Степаньянц С.Д .: Коллекции Зоологического института Российской Академии наук - основа для изучения видового разнообразия. , Зоологический журнал, том 78, N9, 1999, с.1027 - 1047 ( link to the English version of the article on the official website of the St. Petersburg Zoological Institute )
  4. ↑ Taxidermy workshop of the Zoological Museum (Russian); Reviewed May 29, 2014
  5. ↑ a b Mammal Exhibition of the Zoological Museum (Russian); Reviewed May 29, 2014
  6. ^ Insect exhibition at the Zoological Museum (Russian); Reviewed May 29, 2014
  7. ↑ Fish exhibition of the Zoological Museum (Russian); Reviewed May 29, 2014
  8. ^ Mammoth exhibition of the Zoological Museum (Russian); Reviewed May 29, 2014

Coordinates: 59 ° 56 ′ 33.4 "  N , 30 ° 18 ′ 20.2"  E