Sports museums, a must-visit in the lockdown

It’s a week off, and since many public places are closed, the question arises: what to do? We suggest visiting museums dedicated to various sports. This way you will kill two birds with one stone: brighten up your everyday life and take time for self-development. Before visiting, be sure to check the rules for each specific museum.

Hockey Museum in “Park of Legends”

Address: 23/3 Avtozavodskaya Street, landmark “CSKA Arena”. The nearest metro station is Avtozavodskaya.

Here you can find the trophies of the Super Series with Canada, Olympic gold and even personal belongings of famous players. The museum is a part of the sports and entertainment quarter “Park Legends”. The idea of creation belongs to the club “Hockey Legends”, which includes Vyacheslav Fetisov, Sergey Makarov, Alexander Yakushev, Vladimir Lutchenko and others.

The museum has several permanent expositions. The first one is the “Hall of Fame of National Hockey”, which includes the names of 147 people. Among them are players, coaches, referees and sports journalists. The exposition is interactive, so you can not only look, but also read the idol’s biography on the screen. The second exhibition is “Red Machine. Pages of History”. It tells about the birth of hockey and the performance of national teams from 1954 to the present.

Museum of the Russian Chess Federation

Address: 14 Gogolevsky Boulevard, Gogolevsky Street. The nearest metro stations are Kropotkinskaya and Arbatskaya.

This is the world’s first chess museum. It was founded in 1980 and until 2009 occupied one small room in the building of the Botvinnik Central House of Chess Players. Now the expositions are located in three halls of the mansion with a total area of 180 square meters.

The collection of the museum will tell you a lot about the history of world and Russian chess culture. You will see 3 thousand exhibits: chess sets, cups, paintings, graphics, documents, awards of famous grandmasters. There are unique among them: cardboard chess from the siege of Leningrad and Gulag chess made of barbed wire.

The museum has its own collection of books. It includes very rare editions. For example: the first edition of Philidor’s textbook “Analysis of Chess Play”, published as early as 1749, or Domenico Ponziani’s treatise “The incomparable game of chess” published in 1769.

CSKA Sports Glory Museum

Address: Leningradsky Prospekt, b. 39, p. 1. The nearest metro station is Dinamo, Petrovsky Park.

Today the CSKA Museum has 2.5 thousand exhibits, which are located on the perimeter of four halls. The red one presents sports attributes of the pre-war time and the Great Patriotic War period. In addition, in the hall you can read about CSKA athletes who went to the front: gymnast Gleb Baklanov, weightlifter Mikhail Gromov, runner Nikolai Kopylov and shooter Luka Tarasov.

In the blue hall there is an exposition devoted to ice hockey. There you will see medals and things of legendary Army players, as well as a showcase with gifts from Canadians. In it lies the famous mask of goalie Jacques Plante, which the goalie presented to Vladislav Tretiak.

In the green hall most of the space is occupied by stands with information about CSKA managers and portraits of famous CSKA athletes. Last is the Olympic Hall of Fame. At the entrance there will be a bust of legendary discus thrower Nina Ponomaryova. And to find out what else – visit the museum.

State Sports Museum of the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation

Address: 18 Kazakova Street, Kurskaya metro station is the nearest metro station

This is the largest sports museum in Russia. It contains more than 80 thousand unique exhibits, 300 of them have no analogues in the world. In 2010 the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation restored the museum, and then the guests were shown the expositions that have already become permanent: “The birth of Soviet sport”, “Hall of heroes-athletes of the Great Patriotic War”, “Storming the roof of the world”. There is also a “Hall of Sports Glory”.

The museum actively popularizes a healthy lifestyle and physical training. Since 2015, there has been a youth project “Excursion with a sportsman”. Thanks to it, guests can meet, train and talk to famous athletes about their life and path to victory. Participants of the “Excursion with an athlete” were saber fencer Sofya Velikaya, gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, bobsledder Alexander Zubkov and others.

There is another interesting program in the museum – a thematic excursion by bus. The route called “From the origins of sport to the Olympic peaks” includes a visit to the big arena Luzhniki.

Lokomotiv FC Museum

Address: 125 Bolshaya Cherkizovskaya Street, building 1, between the 12th and 13th sectors of the North Stand. The nearest metro station is Cherkizovskaya metro station

The museum has been operating for 10 years, and during this time it has accumulated so many sports attributes that they were placed on two floors. The hall of the first floor is free for visitors and is a fan-zone. There are cups, figures of the main squad players, a gallery of photos of outstanding personalities in the history of the club and stands with the history of home stadiums.

On the second level of the museum you can see the history of Lokomotiv’s victories. There are not only trophies, but also historical artifacts, rare archive photos and videos about the past and present of Lokomotiv. There is also a game zone where you can try yourself as a striker and score a goal for the main goalkeeper of the railroaders – Marinato Guilherme.