Without leaving the arrows of Vasilievsky Island on the embankment of the Neva River, we can see two buildings nearby. One of the buildings is the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The museum is the oldest Zoological museum on the territory of Russia. It was formed in 1832 after separating from the exposition of the Kunstkamera. Zoological Museum has more than 30 thousand exhibits exhibited on an area of 6 thousand square meters. The museum has three halls. The first hall is occupied by collections of insects (over 10,000 exhibits), pinnipeds and cetaceans. The second hall is dedicated to fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds. Also 3000 kinds of invertebrates (corals, mollusks and crustaceans) are represented. The third hall is dedicated to mammals.
This is a neighboring structure. Kunstkamera - Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, created by Peter the Great himself.
This building was started in 1712 by the architect Georg Johann Mattarnovi. Completed the construction already with the participation of other architects: Nikolay Georgievich Gerbel and Harman van Bolos. The construction was completed in 1729. Peter the Great himself took part in the creation in the walls of the Kunstkamera of the storage of various historical, artistic, natural-scientific and other collections of rarities. Being abroad in 1697 - 1698, Peter was surprised and amazed at the rare exhibits, things, collections that were stored in the Dutch cabinets of rarities. Returning to Russia, he decided to organize similar. Throughout the whole period of its existence in the walls of the Kunstkamera, thousands of unique collections of antiquities of all the peoples of the world were collected and have sections on the territories: North America, Japan, Africa, China and Mongolia, India and Indonesia, Australia and Oceania, Anatomical section, as well as the section History of the Kunstkammer and Russian science of the 18th century.