Darwin Museum – Moscow

Taxidermy is in a sad state of affairs.  It’s been on the decline ever since Russian brothers Dimitry and Filipp Fedulov left the scene in 1907.  And we can only lament the passing of F.K. Lorenz and Evitkheivich a few years later. It was also an extremely sexist profession. Most women who worked as taxidermists lived in anonymity.   You think I’m joking…

…but if you happen to stop in Moscow and have time for a melancholic visit, head over to the Darwin Museum, where the lost art of taxidermy and dioramas is on display.   The Museum literally has thousands of stuffed animals, and if you can get over the fact that this implied tens of thousands of animal deaths, you can appreciate what it meant to be a master taxidermist.  Almost as impressive is that most of displays come from the private collection of one man, Alexander Kots, who founded the museum in 1907.

I spent hours here, like a child, fascinated by the diversity of animals.  Something about the bodies holding still–and the implication of the life lost, as well as the effort to preserve, inspires both a reverence and awe for the creatures I hadn’t felt before. Perhaps it is more humane to preserve one tiger for two hundred years than it is to keep generations in zoos?  What is the least of the two evils?

It would be easy to dismiss such displays as inhumane, but displays are often centuries old and a different standard for animal life prevailed then.  I suppose preserving the displays in such excellent condition is in itself an tribute to the animals themselves.  At the very least, one appreciates the solemnity, fine craft, and art of the master taxidermist.

Phone: +7(499) 783-2253
Fax: +7(499) 783-2254
Excursion office: (499) 132-1047
E-mail: info@darwin.museum.ru

www.darwin.museum.ru/eng/