Museum of Russian Icons in Moscow. Tour of the Museum of Russian Icons with a Moscow guide in English

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Russian history is tightly connected with Russian Orthodox church. And the most prominent and impressive part of faith is icons. Style and other parameters of the icon painting can tell a lot of historic facts, so we recommend every tourist to visit Museum of Russian Icons with a Moscow English speaking guide.

Museum of the Russian Icons is the largest private collection in Russian and one of the most important in terms of the level of the items. It counts over 5 000 items.

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Itineraries in Moscow (see more)

There are several parts:

- early Christian icons;

- Byzantium icons of VI–XIV centuries (some of them don't have analogues even in the largest museums of the country);

- Greek icons;

- museum of the wonderful Ethiopian Christian culture.

Base of the collection – 1 000 most precious Russian icons. They are painted in different styles and have high artistic value. Collection covers many historic periods. Comments of the English speaking guide and information about the highlights of the collections will help you to get maximum of this tour.

During the tour you will learn about:

- iconography and art of the ancient Byzantium (of the times of the Roman empire);

- Russian art of icon painting and other remarkable works representing Russian Orthodox icon painting of XII – beginning of XX centuries;

- works of icon-painters;

- styles of icon-painting and works of the main centers of icon-painting of XIX–XX century;

- lives of Russian miracle workers, history of the monasteries they founded, as many of those monasteries appeared because of acquisition of a precious icon;

- interior and activity of an Orthodox temple;

- culture of the Old Believers;

- technique of restoration of icons.

We will be happy if our Moscow English speaking guides help you to find out why Russian icons are still so valued all over the world, what meaning they carry, and what are the hidden messages behind simple images of the saints.