Russia - Libraries and museums



In 1991 Russia's National Library, with branches in Moscow and St. Petersburg, held 62.2 million volumes. In 1995, the country counted 50,032 public libraries, holding in total 983.4 million volumes. Some of the larger collections include the Gorky Moscow Institute of Literature library in Moscow (13.2 million volumes), the State University of Technology library in St. Petersburg (2.9 million volumes), the Bauman Moscow State Engineering University library (three million volumes), the Moscow M. V. Lomonosov State University (7.27 million volumes), the State University at Petersburg (6.4 million volumes), and dozens of other massive collections throughout the country.

Russia has over 1,000 museums. Russian museums house some of the finest collections of European art in the world, the best known of which is the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Also in St. Petersburg are Dostoevsky Memorial House-Museum, the Literary Museum of the Institute of Russian Literature, and the State Museum of Sculpture, housing the country's largest collection of sculpture. Among the dozens of important museums in Moscow are the State Historical Museum, the State Literature Museum, the Tolstoy House Museum, the Chekhov House Museum, the Paleontological Museum of the Academy of Sciences, and the Cathedral of the Assumption, a religious arts museum housed in a 15th-century cathedral.

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