Moscow’s Polytechnical Museum

Very cool! ..there will always be a place for what's 'old'. I want to go to there..

Michelle, nice find and very well written. Good questions

What a strange, dusty, and rather dead location. The exhibits look pre-transistor era! How do these museum employees stay awake?

I have the fondest memories of class trips to the Franklin Institute, even going back when I was an adult. Learning never gets old!

Great find s! Thanks for your time !

Awesome! I'm a sucker for museums, too! I'd love to visit sometime....

Very interesting.

I love science museums, too... great post!

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

So interesting, I would love to go see it.

These pictures are amazing and so interesting - definitely a place to visit one day! Should be added to the book: "Places you must go and see before you leave this planet"! Thanks for sharing!

There's something charming about old museum displays, especially dioramas and other visual effects where you know there's no computer trickery at work!

i love those photos!!

Very interesting :)

ahhh...how i miss the Russian Museum ladies. They are in every single one. And as bored as they may look, watch out! They are super quick to correct any behavior that is against the rules. One even shook her cane at me when I got *too* close to a painting.

Very interested...

The stillness of the women guardians certainly matches the stillness of the times gone by. The past quietly eeks further and further away, so slowly. Mostly no-one realises it's gone as we tirelessly race into the future.

Cool!

This has the same vibe as Bjork's new album & show! It's all about the recent history of science, featuring the tesla coil, pendulums, and even David attenborough. ^-^

What a pleasant surprise to see an article from my Mother Land. One other wonder to see in Moscow is the Metro Subway, often referred to as the living art museum. No two stations are alike and every one tells a story with elaborate murals, carvings, statues, marble walls and floors, and chandeliers. Such beauty. :o)

Looks very intersting! Thanks for the atricle!

Love the juxtaposition provided by the sheer ruffled drapes in the last photo. Bonus points for skillful use of one of my favorite words - "ennui".

many thanks Michelle! love the Russian way :) and the net curtains are just so dreamy and 'still' like the ladies who watch the rooms - i've been to Moscow, wish I knew about this place back then, but it will make go back now :)

I would love drapes like the ones seen in these pictures, guess I'll need a house with ceilings to match! Seriously, though, the composition in the second picture is wonderful. I love the dramatic lighting and the blue walls!

Wonderful photos !

Feast for the eyes! I could get lost...

I really love the documentary style of Mae Ryan's photography!

Very thought-provoking article. The photo's capture and tell all - sad, yet uplifting in a way as the world moves forward.

Looks interesting. I love old stuff! Monica TheIDConnection

Visual poetry for the eyes and soul!

These pictures are beautiful. The essay is also very though provoking. I have to wonder though... Michelle, you had me until the very end of your article when you said, "...at the end of the day, (children) couldn’t care less about the knobs and gears of previous generations." And then in the next sentence, you explicitly question societal untruths, so I am confused as to why you choose to speak for children. How true is that? I know many that would be more than interested. Did you bother to ask any of these "manic" children?

*thought* provoking. Gah.

I am originally form St. Petersburg Russia was born and raised there and lived there for 40 years. I also worked in a Museum of History of St. Petersburg (Peter and Paul Fortress) as a Marketing Director. I am originally form St. Petersburg Russia was born and raised there and lived there for 40 years. I also worked in a Museum of History of St. Petersburg (Peter and Paul Fortress) as a Marketing Director. Museum "guardwomen" are very typical to all museums in Russian. The salary that is paid for this kind of work has been so pathetic . No one except very old people who also receive small pension from the government would agree to do this job. So it has been historical that only old “babushkas” are hired to watch the tourist obey museum rules. These old ladies love their work because they feel empowered and important, and it is true they do not appear to be very friendly.

As someone who spent a majority of her childhood at the Museum of Science in Boston, I saw science as an every day exploration of the miracle of life. But when I went back as an adult, it looked tired to me. Thank you for giving me a different perspective. There are moments of history and science that are caught in time and the Moscow Polytechnical Museum seems to be one of them. And that's not a bad thing! We can't ignore the past any more than we can expect our childhood visions of conquering Mars and driving hover cars to pop into existence tomorrow. This museum looks like it celebrates, and partially mourns, the time it covers. It's refreshing to see the slowness, the repetition, and even the patience of science captured in these photos.

I love museums. It would be great to take my brother there. He loves mechanical stuff. Although a lot of kids are techies these days a good story always captures their attention. I learned that with kids its up to the adult to spark their imaginations and get them interested to things.

Wow! This is so awesome! I absolutely love going to museums, its like going into another world, it seems like I always learn something new. The only problem is that when I go to museums, I only go for one day, so we have to browse through the exhibits fairly quickly. I wish I was able to just spend all the time in the world, looking through museums and absorbing everything they have. It really is amazing the work that goes into the displays and the information! Great article!! -Claire Fancy Cookies, visit my shop if you are hungry! ;)

Very interesting.

Thanks Michelle! Great article and very cool photos!

I agree with Katrinaalana, it's up to parents to spark their children's imagination and help them to get interested in things. I am always grateful that my parents raised me and my siblings to be interested in museums, objects and tales of the past. I do the same now with my son who is a toddler with an ability to navigate through a touch-screen phone. Whether at a museum, gallery or art supply store I encourage lots of 'wow whats this?' and he responds enthusiastically. I think just because we live in a world where high-tech is part of our everyday lives that it doesn't necessarily mean we don't care about the simplicity of days gone by. In fact I think many of us crave it. And though it is not always easy for Grandma's curio cabinet to compete with an x-box it's not impossible either.

Pass the spaceman ice cream! I love scientific museums! Great article :D

so interesting! thanks!

I love the little ladies!

Curious about the women. Is this a much needed job for pay or a volunteer position to fight boredom? Can't you imagine the stories they have to tell?

Gorgeous!

These photographs are storytellers, frozen at an unimaginably slow speed. Beautiful and haunting. They saddened me at the same time, as I felt compelled to take these ladies by the hand and bring them out into the open nature. Maybe wipe off cobwebs off their collars. Waiting for the comments about the humanity side of this realtiy I was relieved that finally, finally, one came. From an art/science perspective I asolutely loved the compositon of the photographs. From a human standpoint I hated them. I know we need to document the truth, but I was just too deeply touched by the inescapable stagnation these ladies must experience each day.

I would guess that those women guards at the Polytechnical Museum in Moscow have sinecures. They may be bored but they have good steady jobs. All this somehow fits right into my idea of Russia, where my family came from in the early '20's. Protectsia as they say must still go on.

Hauntingly beautiful photos.

Ah, I know this kind of places, the old dusty, museums of Eastern Europe where time refuses to enter! I have seen a few in person. Photos are quite good, but they fail to transmit the atmosphere that imbues them. You have to be there to sense their true spirit. There is something profoundly mysterious about coming face to face with suspended time.

I am a lover of all things science. Amazing discovery and those photographs are brilliant.

Love these pictures. Guardians of the past.

I am located in Hong Kong, there is no museums like that, @.@ Thanks for sharing.

Wow! What glum chums. Nothing but the truth.

Anything that I'd want to write has been written already. What sad old women, and no they don't seem to friendly at the end of the day. The boredom! I can't even imagine (no wait, I can). Lovely pictures, depressing and haunting, yet I'm intriguid by the science and the museum. I think the writer of the article can speak from a childs experience because she once was one and hasn't forgotten her own experiences. I don't think it's true for all children and I think the childs experience depends upon who they go with. A group of school peers on a field trip would just be fun but going with an adult who can explain things would be a different experience altogether.

I believe museums are better when they retain some of that sanctuary atmosphere. They should remain a place where people —kids included— get an opportunity to practice contemplation, and even walk out feeling elevated!

I believe the whole world is a museum.

Sad photos.

Great photos.. Love the juxtaposition and feelings they evoke. Strange, interesting and sad - all at the same time.

Those are great photos... I've always wanted to travel to Russia... :):):)

Ah - I remember those ladies! They are in all the museums, and yes, they look quiet and docile, but they will not hesitate to crack down on you if they think you are out of line :)

Beautiful photos, would love to visit the museum. I am a museum junkie, whether they are science, or art, or nature, or someone's oddball collection of *stuff*. :) I love that the museum captures the feel of the aesthetic from the period represented, too -- the last one in particular seems to have an "atomic age" vibe, while the first one feels very "end of 19th Century/beginning of 20th". I have to wonder if the ladies in question are able/willing to answer questions about the exhibits? Because no matter how good the material that is written about the exhibit is, it's always cool to hear stuff the staff knows that didn't make it into the official verbage. :)

Many old mechanisms as in a museum, are worked/remain in houses of citizens. They work. Very interestingly and informative. And it is better to own them and to enjoy. :)

a very nich article...and it is issued right before the museum is going to be renovated and the concept of which is going to change By the way, a nice collection of fotos from the museum under the follwoing link http://englishrussia.com/2011/05/23/the-moscow-polytechnical-museum/#more-52422