ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC MUSEUM

24a ulitsa Marata 191040 St. Petersburg
Open: 10am - 6pm
Closed: Mondays, Tuesdays and the last Saturday of every month
Tel. 311-2549
Nearest metro stations: Vladimirskaya and Dostoyevskaya

The Arctic and Antarctic Museum, devoted to man's exploration of the North and South Poles and the earth's polar regions, is the only one of its kind in the world. Founded in 1930 as a department of the Research Institute and opened to visitors in 1937, it is housed in the building of the former Old Believers' Church of St. Nicholas (1838, architect Avraam Melnikov), which has been converted into a museum.

The museum has several departments which deal with the nature of the polar regions, the history of the opening up of the Northern Sea Route, expeditions to the North and South Poles, and the development of the economy and art of the peoples of the North. About 5,000 items are kept and displayed here, including personal collections belonging to polar explorers, documents, photographs, archaeological artefacts, models of ships, and authentic objects and equipment from the historical expeditions of Willem Barents and the Soviet and international expeditions of the recent past. Among the exhibits are such unusual objects as the ice-reconnaissance plane SH-2 and a tent used on Ivan Papanin's first drifting station. On display are materials relating to the Russian expeditions of Semen Dezhnev, Ermak, Vitus Bering, Fedor Matiushkin, Fedor Lutke, Gavriil Sarychev, Georgy Sedov, Faddei Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, as well as the Soviet expeditions on board the ice-breakers Sibiriakov, Lutke, Cheliuskin and Sedov.