Nizhny Novgorod is a large Russian city with a long history and rich cultural heritage. It boasts dozens of museums that are truly attractive and engaging to travelers of all sorts of interests and preferences. Everyone will find something new and exciting on a Nizhny Novgorod tour.
Let’s take a look at its best museums.

Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum
This is one of the first museums in Russia and the oldest museum in the Nizhny Novgorod Region. Opened in 1896, it is housed in two historical buildings: the house of the military governor and the house of the merchant Sirotkin. Both of them are architectural monuments. Today the museum collection boasts over 12 thousand works of both Russian and Western European art, including paintings, icons, graphic art works, sculptures, etc.
 
 

Museum of the Arts and Crafts History of the Nizhny Novgorod Region
This museum was opened in 1984. It contains more than 4 thousand exhibits of decorative and applied art created by the craftsmen of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The exposition contains paragons of wood carving, wood painting (Khokhloma, Gorodets painting, etc.), folk toys and fabrics, metal wares, etc. The museum hosts folk art master classes and folk Russian holidays.
More about Russian Wood Painting and Wood Carving
 

Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin
This is a fortress built at the beginning of the 16th century. It stands in the historic center of the city, at the confluence of the Volga and Oka Rivers. Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin taking the area of 22.7 hectares is surrounded with 18 to 30 meter high fortress walls and 13 towers. Inside the Kremlin there is the St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral built in 1631, a garrison house, the palace of the vice-governor, several monuments, etc. The administration of the Nizhny Novgorod Region and Nizhny Novgorod, the Arbitration Court and other state bodies are settled in the territory of the Kremlin.


Rukavishnikov Estate Museum
This old and large-scale museum opened in 1896 consists of eight branches. Its main building is the merchant manor of the Rukavishnikov millionaires, a monument of architecture of the late 19th century. The building was designed in the Italian Palazzo style. Its owners, the Rukavishnikovs family, intended to have the most beautiful and richest house in Nizhny Novgorod constructed for them. Visitors to the museum marvel at the gorgeous interior design and decoration of the palace. In addition to that, the museum’s main building and branches house over 300 thousand exhibits, including collections of porcelain, furniture, fabrics, paintings, engravings, etc.

Museum of Architecture and Household of the Peoples of the Nizhny Novgorod Volga Basin
The Architecture and Household Museum was founded in 1973. It covers 38 hectares of land on the territory of the Schelkovsky Farm, which is a forest park in the Soviet District of Nizhny Novgorod. The museum presents monuments of the Russian wooden architecture of the 17th - 19th centuries. These are churches, mills, barns, barns, and residential village huts, altogether 16 buildings. The houses are decorated with traditional Russian wooden carving and display the reconstructed household of the 17th-19th centuries inside. 

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