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The State Russian Museum has successfully realised the project of creation of The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch centers since 2003. It has been realised with the partnership of Sistema Finance Investments. Mobile Tele-Systems (MTS) is a general sponsor of The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch programme.

Aims

• Effective familiarising of visitors of the Virtual Branches with the values of Russian culture
• Extension and deepening of knowledge of the history of Russian art and national cultures, collections and activity of the Russian Museum on the basis of free access to digital electronic and printed materials
• Creation of a uniform cultural and information space on the territory of the countries of a cluster

The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch is an information and educational centre, organised on the basis of academic, educational and methodical researches of the leading museum curators. Using of modern computer technologies provides availability and high quality of multi-media scientific and educational programmes.

The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch center consists of two zones: educational zone and multi-media cinema.

The educational zone presents produce of the museum (more than 200 items): publications (albums, catalogues and methodical manuals), multi-media programmes on CDs and DVDs and video films about the Museum collections and history of Russian art. Visitors of the educational zone get acquainted with the Russian Museum site and other Internet resources connected with the Russian cultural heritage. Classes for children and adults including those based on the techniques of the Russian Center for Museum Pedagogic and Children-s Creativity are also held here.

Academic Research Section developed interactive programmes on the Museum exhibitions on CDs. These programmes give a retrospective review of the most prominent events in the exhibition activity of the Russian Museum, allow the visitors of the Center to visit temporary exhibitions virtually and hold classes on such themes as Three Centuries of Russian Art, Painting, Graphic Art and Sculpture in Russian Art of the 1860s, Impressionism in Russia, Russian Futurism, Russian Portrait of the 20th Century, St Petersburg. Portrait of the City and its Citizens, Jesus Christ in Fine Arts and Religious Petersburg and oeuvre of the Russian artists Hovhannes Aivazovsky, Boris Kustodiev, Kazimir Malevich, Natalia Goncharova and Valentin Serov. The Center also presents the History of One Masterpiece cycle and an interactive programme on the Open Fund of Russian Sculpture.

The multi-media cinema introduces its visitors to the programmes created with the use of the latest achievements in the informational and virtual reality technologies, the three-dimensional computer simulation. The cinema demonstrates programmes on the history of the collection and palaces of the Russian Museum, multi-media films on the history of creation and restoration of the palaces of the Russian Museum, the Ludwig Museum in the Russian Museum, and the Look from the Russian Museum cycle of programmes on cultural relations of St Petersburg with cities, contributing to the programme, as well as on history and collections of local art museums.

The Virtual World of the Russian Museum programme created with the use of the three-dimensional computer simulation enables to tour the palaces of the Russian Museum complex, to show the Museum exposition and historical reconstructions of lost museum interiors. Here you can make a tour of a virtual painting and pass through one painting to another one. A special three-dimensional space, based on the subjects of two paintings, welcomes the visitors to take part in the events.

The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch project includes creation of local net of the virtual branches, joining the participants of the project (museums, universities and schools). It will allow to see the events in the Russian Museum (opening of exhibitions, etc,) on-line; to exchange news; to get access to the new multi-media programmes, developed by the Russian Museum; to develop distance education.

Within the frameworks of the virtual branches net the Russian Museum held videoconferences with the Kaliningrad State Art Gallery, the Alexei Gorky Perm State University, the Mikhail Lomonosov Moscow State University and the South Ural State University. On December 14, 2005 the State Russian Museum held videoconference with the Nikolai Lobachevsky Nizhny Novgorod State University. 

Annually the Russian Museum organizes analytical seminars on management and development of The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch information and educational centers in museums and educational establishments. Heads of the information and educational centers from St Petersburg, Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Murmansk, Petrozavodsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Saratov and other cities of the Leningrad Region and former Soviet republics (Kohtla-Jarve, Estonia) contribute to the seminars. Organization and development of the effective collaboration of cultural institutions within the frameworks of The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch project regular seminar will be held in November 2007.

The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch information and educational centers are based on the educational and cultural institutions.
Education includes activities of the centers at the universities in Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Perm, St Petersburg and Moscow. Lessons on the World Artistic Culture and other humanitarian courses are held on the base of the centres.

Centers in museums of Samara, Petrozavodsk, Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Perm, Tver, Ekaterinburg, Irbit, Yakutsk, Nizhny Tagil, Kirov and Salekhard work with single visitors and groups from schools, kindergartens, colleges and institutes of higher education.

Centers on the base of educational and cultural institutions in Sosnovy Bor, Lisy Nos, Kirishi, Gatchina and St Petersburg hold lectures on the history of fine artS and architecture as well as competitions for pupils and seminars for school and infant school teachers.

In October 2005 the first ever The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch information and educational center opened abroad (Kohtla-Jarve, Estonia).

The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch information and educational center is available for public at large. It introduces not only the State Russian Museum but the history of Russian culture as well. Opening of the State Russian Museum centers is the new stage of the Museum integration into the united cultural and informational world space.

At present day The Russian Museum: The Virtual Branch information and educational centers work in Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Samara, Sosnovy Bor, Lisy Nos, Kirishi, St Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Perm, Moscow, Tver, Ekaterinburg, Kohtla-Jarve (Estonia), Chelyabinsk, Syktyvkar, Irbit, Gatchina, Yakutsk, Nizhny Tagil, Kirov and Salekhard.

The State Russian Museum: 4 Inzhenernaya, St Petersburg, Russia 191186
Tel.: 595 42 40, Fax: 314 41 53, e-mail: info@rusmuseum.ru www.rusmuseum.ru

Director - Vladimir Gusyev,

Scientific adviser of the project - Yevgenia Petrova, deputy director for academic research

Project promoter - Natalia Kuleshova, deputy director for academic and educational work

Head of the multi-media and computer research coordination department - Olga Kissel

Head of the department of art museums of Russia
Tatyana Kolpakova, Tel./Fax: (812) 347-87-03, 570-52-21, 570-52-33
Е-mail: arts@rusmuseum.ru

Head of the department for the service and attraction of visitors - Sergei Fokin
Tel./Fax: (812) 347-87-04
Е-mail: fokin_s@rusmuseum.ru

Department of development of the project "The Russian Museum: the Virtual Branch"
Olga Babina - head of the department
Tel.: (812) 347-87-05
Fax: (812) 314-41-53
E-mail: virtualrm@rusmuseum.ru