Book Museum
Access to the Book Museum is free, no Reader Pass is required.
Information about book exhibitions and other events taking place in the Museum can be found in the RSL events calendar (Rus.). The Museum also offers Russian-language guided tours for children and adults.
The RSL Book Museum has a permanent exhibition, which opened to visitors in 1983. It features unique foreign and domestic publications from the 15th to the 21st centuries, examples of original and mass-produced graphic art; printing materials and tools; memorial items belonging to prominent figures in the book trade; over 1,000 books and objects connected with reading and writing.
Here visitors can see the treasures of the country's largest library and trace the key stages in the history of printing through authentic examples. The book is presented as the most important means of information, as an object of material culture and as a work of art.
A visitor to the Book Museum can see the earliest forms of the book (papyrus scrolls, clay tablets, non traditional forms of oriental books made from palm leaves and paper); facsimile reproductions of the early parchment codex the “Arkhangelsk Gospel” of 1092 and Johann Gutenberg's 42 line Bible from the 15th century; European incunabula decorated with initials and ornamentation; the first Cyrillic script books, printed by Schweipolt Fiol, Francysk Skaryna and Ivan Fyodorov in Russia, Belarus, Poland and Ukraine.
The thematic sections allow you to trace how the main elements of the book – the title page, binding, typeface and illustration – have changed and evolved over the centuries.
The exhibition also features first editions of works by famous writers and scholars, including lifetime editions of Cervantes, Newton, Voltaire, Lomonosov, Goethe, Pushkin, Mendeleyev, Pavlov and Einstein; copies from the collections of renowned collectors – Rumyantsev, Norov, Soldatyonkov, Smirnov Sokolsky, Russian and foreign monarchs and members of their families; genuine masterpieces of book art, and unusual publications on wallpaper, silk and cork, as well as miniature books less than a centimetre in size.
The museum's interior – walnut display cases reminiscent of medieval scriptorium tables, walls panelled in wood, a black and white marble floor, a high ceiling with stucco moulding and softly lit chandeliers – creates a unique atmosphere. Books are also displayed in antique bookcases. While the concept of the exhibition remains unchanged, it is constantly being improved and expanded, and the range of exhibits is regularly updated.