The Museum of Death in St. Petersburg is a place worth visiting

What is a museum of death? This is the place where they come for vivid impressions or, nevertheless, in order to learn something new? Or visitors of such an unusual exhibition - people who dream of touching something beyond the bounds? It is not customary to talk about death openly. However, there is still a place where a lot of things will be enthusiastically told about her. It is a museum of death in St. Petersburg.

Why Peter?

Many find that the opening of such a rather gloomy exhibition in this city is symbolic. Indeed, St. Petersburg is not often sunny and friendly, this city is usually gloomy and sad. Such a mood was often noted in his writings by philosophers, painted by the word writers and painters artists.

In 2013, the museum of death opened in this city. A little later, in 2014, a similar gloomy exhibition appeared in Moscow on Novy Arbat. It is interesting that Alexander Donskoy, the former mayor of Arkhangelsk, became the founder and curator of both museums. No less remarkable is the fact that this serious and respectable man bequeathed to bury himself in a coffin in the form of a fish. Why so? The costs of the profession make themselves felt, because this desire Alexander Donskoy expressed already after they were opened museums of death.

Such an extraordinary desire of the founder of the two expositions gives grounds to believe that these seemingly gloomy exhibitions are in fact not so serious. Is it so?

Mission of the Museum of Death

Alexander Donskoy until 2013 already had other scandalous projects behind him. So, he opened a museum of eroticism and a museum of power. The latter was safely closed at the insistence of the authorities of St. Petersburg. A new project was criticized, which even many of the townspeople considered unnecessarily scandalous.

Alexander Donskoy himself commented on this attitude in the following way: this project was not created in order to become a kind of dark cult or propagate suicide among young residents of the city of St. Petersburg. The museum of death is in fact a place where every person can come, who is afraid of being there, beyond the bounds. And he will leave here without his former mystical fears.

Agree, the mission is quite serious. And although many of the exhibits of this museum may seem strange or even cause a smile, in fact in the funerary cultures of other countries, they remain serious and reverent attitude. So what is the exposition of this museum?

Description of exposition

The Death Museum is located in the basement of the house on Nevsky Prospekt and occupies four rooms. They maintain the atmosphere appropriate to the theme. No, calling it an atmosphere of horror or fear will be wrong, but it's right to call it ominous.

In the first hall, guests are met by skeletons clothed in mourning attire. These are the local bride and groom - the symbols that no one canceled the oath of eternal fidelity and after death. In the same room are presented and funerary masks brought from different parts of the world. From his regiment to the viewer, the sad angel looks indifferently. He seems to know that all of us are waiting there, beyond the last line.

The next two rooms are smaller. They collected multicolored skulls, among which you can find even inlaid with semiprecious stones. There are also various tombstones, and even unusual and strange coffins from African Ghana. Exhibits exhibited in these halls give a visual representation of how funeral rites take place in different parts of the world.

The last room tells about the ritual traditions of the East. It is here that the spirit of death from Hong Kong lives. Immediately in its glass tomb rests a skeleton clothed in a samurai costume.

There are also special exhibits in the museum, which enjoy the increased attention of the public.

The most photogenic exhibits

In this museum you can see an unusual picture. A power couple, husband and wife, can suddenly, for no reason at all, climb into the coffin in order to be photographed in it. Yes, there is a special coffin for these purposes, and, by the way, some visitors just to impress themselves on a long memory in such an unusual situation, and come to the museum of death. The photo here is really not prohibited. Only here dim lighting sometimes does not help this occupation at all.

From this gloomy museum you can bring photos even with Death itself. She meets guests in the corridor between the halls and also very often gets to the photo.

Impressions of people who visited the museum of death

What do people who just examined the exposition of this museum say? With what emotions do they leave the exhibition? Impressions are very different.

Some visitors express their opinions that they did not have enough of something at the exhibition. Most likely, it can be explained by the fact that some percent of the guests still have inflated expectations.

Most of the visitors come out of the museum under the impression. To touch something beyond the limit is always interesting, and the atmosphere of the exhibition attracts its mystical focus. And many people come here to the death museum (St. Petersburg, not Moscow) to feel this atmosphere of mysterious and sad peace.