The Tretyakov Gallery: Russia Through Art
Explore the masterpieces of Russian art through the history, ideas and cultural traditions that shaped them on privately guided tour.
- Duration: ~2-3 hrs
- Distance: ~800m
- Type: museum tour with optional walk
- Theme: Russian Art, History & Culture
A private tour of the State Tretyakov Gallery offers an extraordinary introduction to a thousand years of Russian art — from medieval icons and the cityscapes and imperial portraits of the eighteenth century to the masterpieces of nineteenth-century Realism and the Russian Impressionism of the early twentieth century. The Gallery's thoughtfully arranged collection allows us to follow the evolution of Russian art across genres and styles while seeing the history of Russia through the people, places and events captured by its artists.
Portraits bring the faces of tsars, famous writers and other prominent figures to life; historical paintings capture pivotal moments in Russia's past; landscapes evoke the character of the Russian countryside; and scenes of everyday life reveal a society undergoing profound change. Your expert guide provides the context and interpretation that connect these works, turning a succession of masterpieces into a deeper understanding of Russian culture and its changing view of itself.
Duration: 2–3 hours
Extension: The experience can be extended with a private walking tour through historic Zamoskvorechye, the neighbourhood surrounding the Tretyakov Gallery, or continued towards Red Square.
Portraits bring the faces of tsars, famous writers and other prominent figures to life; historical paintings capture pivotal moments in Russia's past; landscapes evoke the character of the Russian countryside; and scenes of everyday life reveal a society undergoing profound change. Your expert guide provides the context and interpretation that connect these works, turning a succession of masterpieces into a deeper understanding of Russian culture and its changing view of itself.
Duration: 2–3 hours
Extension: The experience can be extended with a private walking tour through historic Zamoskvorechye, the neighbourhood surrounding the Tretyakov Gallery, or continued towards Red Square.
Tour Flow & Highlights
The itinerary below is an example of a typical experience; the pace and emphasis are tailored to the interests of the guests.
Your guide will meet you at the Gallery or at a location of your choice.
If requested, transportation can be arranged by Moscow Metro, taxi, Mercedes-Benz V-Class or private coach.
The Inspiration Fountain
A contemporary sculptural composition representing three traditional genres of painting: portraiture, landscape and historical painting.
The Gallery's historic architecture and the monument to Pavel Tretyakov
An introduction to the distinctive architecture of the historic Tretyakov Gallery and the story of its creation.
Entry to the Gallery via the lobby on the -1 level
A standard security check, including bag screening, is conducted upon entry.
The Tretyakovs and the making of the collection
The story of Pavel Tretyakov, his family and the remarkable collection that became Russia's foremost museum of national art.
Russian Art of the 18th Century
Imperial portraits, aristocratic society and the cityscapes of eighteenth-century Russia.
Russian Art of the 19th Century
The great masters of Russian Realism and the Peredvizhniki, whose paintings brought Russian history and contemporary society vividly to life.
Russian Art of the Early 20th Century
The transition towards a new artistic language through Russian Impressionism and Symbolism.
Ancient Russian Art
Medieval icons and the spiritual traditions at the foundation of Russian culture.
Optional extension: Zamoskvorechye or Red Square
Continue with a private walking tour through historic Zamoskvorechye, the neighbourhood surrounding the Gallery, or walk towards Red Square and Zaryadye Park.
Tour conclusion
Your guide can arrange onward transportation or accompany you to your preferred location.
Detailed Tour Description
The private Tretyakov Gallery tour offers an in-depth introduction to Russian art through the works that reveal how Russia saw itself — its rulers, cities, writers, landscapes, social realities and defining moments in history.
The experience takes place in the historic Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane, the original home of Pavel Tretyakov's collection. What began with his first purchases in 1856 developed into a remarkable collection spanning centuries of Russian art, which Tretyakov ultimately presented to the city of Moscow. The building itself is part of the story: the family home was gradually transformed into a gallery as the collection grew, culminating in the distinctive Russian-style façade designed by Viktor Vasnetsov.
The tour follows the development of Russian art from medieval icons and eighteenth-century court culture through the great age of nineteenth-century painting and into the more impressionistic and expressive language of the early twentieth century.
The experience takes place in the historic Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane, the original home of Pavel Tretyakov's collection. What began with his first purchases in 1856 developed into a remarkable collection spanning centuries of Russian art, which Tretyakov ultimately presented to the city of Moscow. The building itself is part of the story: the family home was gradually transformed into a gallery as the collection grew, culminating in the distinctive Russian-style façade designed by Viktor Vasnetsov.
The tour follows the development of Russian art from medieval icons and eighteenth-century court culture through the great age of nineteenth-century painting and into the more impressionistic and expressive language of the early twentieth century.
View full tour description...
From Imperial Court to Russian Culture
The eighteenth-century galleries introduce a Russia transformed by the reforms of Peter the Great and increasingly engaged with European artistic traditions. Portraits of Empress Elizabeth and Empress Catherine the Great reveal how the image of imperial power was constructed, while works by the leading artists of the newly established Russian Academy demonstrate the ambitions of a culture determined to establish its own sophisticated school of painting.
The city views of Fyodor Alekseev offer a different perspective on the same transformation. His meticulously observed panoramas of Moscow and St Petersburg turn the imperial capitals themselves into subjects of art, allowing us to consider how Russia's rapidly changing urban environment was represented and imagined.
The Faces of Nineteenth-Century Russia
One of the Gallery's most compelling features is its extraordinary portrait collection. Here, names familiar from Russian history and literature acquire human faces: Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and other writers and cultural figures appear not as distant historical names but as individuals captured by the leading portraitists of their age.
Among the most celebrated examples is Orest Kiprensky's portrait of Pushkin, while Vasily Perov's portrait of Dostoevsky offers an exceptionally concentrated psychological study of the writer. The Gallery's portrait collection was, in fact, closely connected with Tretyakov's ambition to create a visual pantheon of Russian writers, artists and intellectuals.
History on a Monumental Scale
The nineteenth century also saw Russian painters turn increasingly towards their own history and society. The vast Appearance of Christ to the People by Alexander Ivanov is one of the defining works of the collection. Its monumental scale and decades-long development provide an opportunity to discuss the ambitions of the Russian Academy, the influence of European art and Ivanov's search for a new kind of historical and spiritual painting. The Gallery's historic collection includes an exceptionally important group of Ivanov's works and studies connected with the painting.
The more intimate but often sharply comic paintings of Pavel Fedotov offer a striking contrast. His genre scenes observe the habits, pretensions and social absurdities of nineteenth-century society with an almost theatrical sense of humour.
Historical painting reaches another level of emotional and psychological intensity in the works of Ilya Repin, while artists such as Vasily Surikov transformed episodes from Russian history into dramatic narratives in which individual characters seem caught at decisive moments.
Art and the Social Reality of Russia
The rise of the Peredvizhniki, or Wanderers, brought ordinary life, social inequality and contemporary experience into the centre of Russian painting.
Works by Vasily Perov invite a particularly direct encounter with this new social realism. His scenes of everyday life combine observation with compassion, humour and moral tension. The Last Tavern at the City Gates, for example, turns an apparently ordinary scene into a poignant observation of poverty, exhaustion and a society in transition.
Vasily Pukirev's The Unequal Marriage addresses another social reality through a highly charged scene of a young bride being married to a considerably older man. The painting's theatrical composition and carefully observed characters make it possible to discuss not only marriage and social convention, but also the role that nineteenth-century painting could play in questioning the values of its own society.
The Russian Landscape
Landscape became one of the great subjects through which Russian artists developed a distinctive national visual language.
Alexei Savrasov's The Rooks Have Returned is an apparently simple spring landscape whose quietness and emotional resonance made it one of the defining images of Russian painting. Arkhip Kuindzhi's Moonlit Night on the Dnieper, by contrast, demonstrates the dramatic possibilities of light and colour, transforming landscape into an almost atmospheric vision. Both works reveal how the Russian landscape could become a vehicle for mood, memory and national identity.
The Art of the Imperial Academy
The collection also reveals the remarkable sophistication of Russian academic painting, shaped by the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg and closely connected with the grand European tradition of Salon art. The finest Russian academic painters produced monumental historical, biblical and mythological scenes with extraordinary technical precision, theatrical compositions and sumptuous detail. Henryk Siemiradski's Dance among the Swords is a striking example: its polished execution, dramatic staging and sensual treatment of antiquity could easily stand alongside the grand Salon paintings of nineteenth-century Paris. These works offer a fascinating glimpse into the cosmopolitan artistic culture of Imperial Russia — and into the high level of training achieved by the Academy's leading artists.
From Russian Realism to Art Nouveau and Modernism
The final decades of the nineteenth century brought a remarkable expansion of Russian artistic language. Alongside the socially engaged Realism of the Peredvizhniki, artists increasingly turned towards folklore, mythology, symbolism and new decorative forms, laying the foundations for Russian Art Nouveau.
Viktor Vasnetsov played a central role in this rediscovery of Russia's medieval and folkloric past. His monumental Bogatyrstransforms the heroes of Russian epic poetry into an imposing vision of national character, while Ivan Tsarevich on the Grey Wolf and Alyonushka draw on the world of Russian fairy tales. His influence extended beyond painting: Vasnetsov's distinctive design for the Tretyakov Gallery façade created a visual connection between the museum and the medieval Russian traditions celebrated in its collection.
Mikhail Vrubel took this fascination with mythology, theatre and the medieval past in a radically different direction. His intensely expressive paintings, rich colour and fractured, almost jewel-like surfaces place him among the most original figures of Russian Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Works such as The Demon Seated reveal an artist who moved far beyond conventional academic painting, creating images of extraordinary psychological and symbolic intensity. His Princess of Dreams (La Princesse lointaine) opens another connection with Moscow beyond the Gallery: Vrubel's composition became the basis for the monumental majolica panel that crowns the façade of the Metropol Hotel, one of the city's great Art Nouveau landmarks. The work provides a striking example of how the new artistic language of the period moved beyond the canvas into architecture and decorative art, transforming the appearance of Moscow itself.
The transition towards modern art can then be followed through artists such as Valentin Serov, whose Girl with Peaches captures the freshness and immediacy of a new approach to portraiture, Philipp Malyavin, whose Dance transforms colour and movement into an almost physical force, and Igor Grabar, whose luminous landscapes and interiors demonstrate the impact of Impressionism on Russian painting.
Together, these artists reveal how rapidly Russian art was changing at the turn of the twentieth century — from the observation of contemporary society towards a more personal, symbolic and experimental understanding of painting.
Ancient Russian Art: From Byzantium to the Age of Peter the Great
The final section of the tour takes us into Ancient Russian Art, spanning the eleventh century to the turn of the eighteenth century. Here, the origins and development of Russian icon painting can be traced from the Byzantine tradition brought to Rus with the adoption of Christianity to the sophisticated artistic culture of medieval Moscow and the seventeenth century.
Among the earliest masterpieces is the Annunciation of Ustyug, a twelfth-century icon associated with Novgorod and originally from the collection of Moscow cathedrals. Its solemn composition and highly refined visual language reveal the Byzantine foundations of early Russian religious art.
The celebrated Our Lady of the Don, traditionally attributed to Theophanes the Greek, offers another important link between Byzantium and Rus. Theophanes, a Byzantine-born master who worked in Russia, brought with him an artistic tradition that was subsequently transformed by Russian icon painters. The works associated with Andrey Rublev represent one of the great achievements of this tradition, characterised by exceptional harmony, clarity and spiritual intensity.
The collection then carries the story into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when icon painting became increasingly connected with the religious, political and cultural life of the growing Muscovite state. The monumental Blessed is the Host of the King of Heaven, traditionally associated with Ivan the Terrible's conquest of Kazan, offers a fascinating example of the intersection of religious imagery and political power. Its procession of saints and warriors moving towards a heavenly Jerusalem invites discussion of sacred kingship, military victory and the evolving idea of Moscow as the centre of Orthodox Christianity. Other monumental compositions, including representations of theLast Judgment, reveal the extraordinary complexity of the theological imagery developed by Russian icon painters during this period.
By the seventeenth century, Russian religious art was becoming increasingly elaborate, narrative and expressive, reflecting a society on the threshold of profound transformation. The section provides an opportunity to consider how Orthodox Christianity, Byzantine artistic principles and specifically Russian traditions combined to create a visual language that remained central to Russian culture for centuries.
The story ends at the turn of the eighteenth century, when the reforms of Peter the Great opened a radically different chapter. Western European artistic traditions, secular subjects, portraiture and the academic system would increasingly reshape Russian art — leading directly into the imperial and Europeanised artistic culture encountered in the earlier galleries of the tour.
Beyond the Masterpieces
Taken together, these works tell a story considerably larger than the history of Russian painting. They reveal changing ideas about power and society, the relationship between Russia and Europe, the emergence of a Russian national consciousness, the role of the artist as an observer of society, and the growing importance of the individual — whether an emperor, a writer, a peasant, a bride or an artist.
The selection of works discussed during the visit is adapted to the interests of the guests. A guest particularly interested in Russian history may spend more time with imperial portraiture and historical painting; those interested in literature may focus on the portraits of Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy; while an interest in art history can lead towards the Academy, Realism, the Peredvizhniki and the transition towards Impressionism and modern art.
The precise selection of works may vary according to the Gallery's current display, temporary exhibitions, conservation requirements and other operational considerations. Named works are therefore illustrative of the Gallery's collection and are not a guarantee that each work will be on view on the date of the visit.
Booking & Practical Information
The Tretyakov Gallery tour can be booked as a standalone experience or incorporated into a wider private sightseeing programme in Moscow. It can be arranged for individuals and small private parties as well as for larger groups, with the format and duration adapted to the requirements of the guests.
The tour price includes the services of an accredited guide, admission tickets for all participants, the required museum tour documentation and advance reservation services. Group pricing is available on request.
Guests interested in Russian and Soviet art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries may wish to extend their programme with a private visit to the New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val, whose collection focuses on modern and contemporary Russian art.
Opening hours of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane:
Monday — closed
Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday — 10:00–18:00
Thursday, Friday, Saturday — 10:00–21:00
Opening hours, admission arrangements and access to individual galleries may change; we recommend confirming the current schedule when booking.
The eighteenth-century galleries introduce a Russia transformed by the reforms of Peter the Great and increasingly engaged with European artistic traditions. Portraits of Empress Elizabeth and Empress Catherine the Great reveal how the image of imperial power was constructed, while works by the leading artists of the newly established Russian Academy demonstrate the ambitions of a culture determined to establish its own sophisticated school of painting.
The city views of Fyodor Alekseev offer a different perspective on the same transformation. His meticulously observed panoramas of Moscow and St Petersburg turn the imperial capitals themselves into subjects of art, allowing us to consider how Russia's rapidly changing urban environment was represented and imagined.
The Faces of Nineteenth-Century Russia
One of the Gallery's most compelling features is its extraordinary portrait collection. Here, names familiar from Russian history and literature acquire human faces: Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and other writers and cultural figures appear not as distant historical names but as individuals captured by the leading portraitists of their age.
Among the most celebrated examples is Orest Kiprensky's portrait of Pushkin, while Vasily Perov's portrait of Dostoevsky offers an exceptionally concentrated psychological study of the writer. The Gallery's portrait collection was, in fact, closely connected with Tretyakov's ambition to create a visual pantheon of Russian writers, artists and intellectuals.
History on a Monumental Scale
The nineteenth century also saw Russian painters turn increasingly towards their own history and society. The vast Appearance of Christ to the People by Alexander Ivanov is one of the defining works of the collection. Its monumental scale and decades-long development provide an opportunity to discuss the ambitions of the Russian Academy, the influence of European art and Ivanov's search for a new kind of historical and spiritual painting. The Gallery's historic collection includes an exceptionally important group of Ivanov's works and studies connected with the painting.
The more intimate but often sharply comic paintings of Pavel Fedotov offer a striking contrast. His genre scenes observe the habits, pretensions and social absurdities of nineteenth-century society with an almost theatrical sense of humour.
Historical painting reaches another level of emotional and psychological intensity in the works of Ilya Repin, while artists such as Vasily Surikov transformed episodes from Russian history into dramatic narratives in which individual characters seem caught at decisive moments.
Art and the Social Reality of Russia
The rise of the Peredvizhniki, or Wanderers, brought ordinary life, social inequality and contemporary experience into the centre of Russian painting.
Works by Vasily Perov invite a particularly direct encounter with this new social realism. His scenes of everyday life combine observation with compassion, humour and moral tension. The Last Tavern at the City Gates, for example, turns an apparently ordinary scene into a poignant observation of poverty, exhaustion and a society in transition.
Vasily Pukirev's The Unequal Marriage addresses another social reality through a highly charged scene of a young bride being married to a considerably older man. The painting's theatrical composition and carefully observed characters make it possible to discuss not only marriage and social convention, but also the role that nineteenth-century painting could play in questioning the values of its own society.
The Russian Landscape
Landscape became one of the great subjects through which Russian artists developed a distinctive national visual language.
Alexei Savrasov's The Rooks Have Returned is an apparently simple spring landscape whose quietness and emotional resonance made it one of the defining images of Russian painting. Arkhip Kuindzhi's Moonlit Night on the Dnieper, by contrast, demonstrates the dramatic possibilities of light and colour, transforming landscape into an almost atmospheric vision. Both works reveal how the Russian landscape could become a vehicle for mood, memory and national identity.
The Art of the Imperial Academy
The collection also reveals the remarkable sophistication of Russian academic painting, shaped by the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg and closely connected with the grand European tradition of Salon art. The finest Russian academic painters produced monumental historical, biblical and mythological scenes with extraordinary technical precision, theatrical compositions and sumptuous detail. Henryk Siemiradski's Dance among the Swords is a striking example: its polished execution, dramatic staging and sensual treatment of antiquity could easily stand alongside the grand Salon paintings of nineteenth-century Paris. These works offer a fascinating glimpse into the cosmopolitan artistic culture of Imperial Russia — and into the high level of training achieved by the Academy's leading artists.
From Russian Realism to Art Nouveau and Modernism
The final decades of the nineteenth century brought a remarkable expansion of Russian artistic language. Alongside the socially engaged Realism of the Peredvizhniki, artists increasingly turned towards folklore, mythology, symbolism and new decorative forms, laying the foundations for Russian Art Nouveau.
Viktor Vasnetsov played a central role in this rediscovery of Russia's medieval and folkloric past. His monumental Bogatyrstransforms the heroes of Russian epic poetry into an imposing vision of national character, while Ivan Tsarevich on the Grey Wolf and Alyonushka draw on the world of Russian fairy tales. His influence extended beyond painting: Vasnetsov's distinctive design for the Tretyakov Gallery façade created a visual connection between the museum and the medieval Russian traditions celebrated in its collection.
Mikhail Vrubel took this fascination with mythology, theatre and the medieval past in a radically different direction. His intensely expressive paintings, rich colour and fractured, almost jewel-like surfaces place him among the most original figures of Russian Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Works such as The Demon Seated reveal an artist who moved far beyond conventional academic painting, creating images of extraordinary psychological and symbolic intensity. His Princess of Dreams (La Princesse lointaine) opens another connection with Moscow beyond the Gallery: Vrubel's composition became the basis for the monumental majolica panel that crowns the façade of the Metropol Hotel, one of the city's great Art Nouveau landmarks. The work provides a striking example of how the new artistic language of the period moved beyond the canvas into architecture and decorative art, transforming the appearance of Moscow itself.
The transition towards modern art can then be followed through artists such as Valentin Serov, whose Girl with Peaches captures the freshness and immediacy of a new approach to portraiture, Philipp Malyavin, whose Dance transforms colour and movement into an almost physical force, and Igor Grabar, whose luminous landscapes and interiors demonstrate the impact of Impressionism on Russian painting.
Together, these artists reveal how rapidly Russian art was changing at the turn of the twentieth century — from the observation of contemporary society towards a more personal, symbolic and experimental understanding of painting.
Ancient Russian Art: From Byzantium to the Age of Peter the Great
The final section of the tour takes us into Ancient Russian Art, spanning the eleventh century to the turn of the eighteenth century. Here, the origins and development of Russian icon painting can be traced from the Byzantine tradition brought to Rus with the adoption of Christianity to the sophisticated artistic culture of medieval Moscow and the seventeenth century.
Among the earliest masterpieces is the Annunciation of Ustyug, a twelfth-century icon associated with Novgorod and originally from the collection of Moscow cathedrals. Its solemn composition and highly refined visual language reveal the Byzantine foundations of early Russian religious art.
The celebrated Our Lady of the Don, traditionally attributed to Theophanes the Greek, offers another important link between Byzantium and Rus. Theophanes, a Byzantine-born master who worked in Russia, brought with him an artistic tradition that was subsequently transformed by Russian icon painters. The works associated with Andrey Rublev represent one of the great achievements of this tradition, characterised by exceptional harmony, clarity and spiritual intensity.
The collection then carries the story into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when icon painting became increasingly connected with the religious, political and cultural life of the growing Muscovite state. The monumental Blessed is the Host of the King of Heaven, traditionally associated with Ivan the Terrible's conquest of Kazan, offers a fascinating example of the intersection of religious imagery and political power. Its procession of saints and warriors moving towards a heavenly Jerusalem invites discussion of sacred kingship, military victory and the evolving idea of Moscow as the centre of Orthodox Christianity. Other monumental compositions, including representations of theLast Judgment, reveal the extraordinary complexity of the theological imagery developed by Russian icon painters during this period.
By the seventeenth century, Russian religious art was becoming increasingly elaborate, narrative and expressive, reflecting a society on the threshold of profound transformation. The section provides an opportunity to consider how Orthodox Christianity, Byzantine artistic principles and specifically Russian traditions combined to create a visual language that remained central to Russian culture for centuries.
The story ends at the turn of the eighteenth century, when the reforms of Peter the Great opened a radically different chapter. Western European artistic traditions, secular subjects, portraiture and the academic system would increasingly reshape Russian art — leading directly into the imperial and Europeanised artistic culture encountered in the earlier galleries of the tour.
Beyond the Masterpieces
Taken together, these works tell a story considerably larger than the history of Russian painting. They reveal changing ideas about power and society, the relationship between Russia and Europe, the emergence of a Russian national consciousness, the role of the artist as an observer of society, and the growing importance of the individual — whether an emperor, a writer, a peasant, a bride or an artist.
The selection of works discussed during the visit is adapted to the interests of the guests. A guest particularly interested in Russian history may spend more time with imperial portraiture and historical painting; those interested in literature may focus on the portraits of Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy; while an interest in art history can lead towards the Academy, Realism, the Peredvizhniki and the transition towards Impressionism and modern art.
The precise selection of works may vary according to the Gallery's current display, temporary exhibitions, conservation requirements and other operational considerations. Named works are therefore illustrative of the Gallery's collection and are not a guarantee that each work will be on view on the date of the visit.
Booking & Practical Information
The Tretyakov Gallery tour can be booked as a standalone experience or incorporated into a wider private sightseeing programme in Moscow. It can be arranged for individuals and small private parties as well as for larger groups, with the format and duration adapted to the requirements of the guests.
The tour price includes the services of an accredited guide, admission tickets for all participants, the required museum tour documentation and advance reservation services. Group pricing is available on request.
Guests interested in Russian and Soviet art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries may wish to extend their programme with a private visit to the New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val, whose collection focuses on modern and contemporary Russian art.
Opening hours of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane:
Monday — closed
Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday — 10:00–18:00
Thursday, Friday, Saturday — 10:00–21:00
Opening hours, admission arrangements and access to individual galleries may change; we recommend confirming the current schedule when booking.
Our approach
The Tretyakov Gallery is not simply a collection of masterpieces. It is an opportunity to understand how Russia saw itself through art — and to learn how to look at the works themselves.
Context That Connects the Collection
We place individual works within the wider story of Russian history and culture, connecting artists and paintings with the people, ideas and events behind them. Imperial portraiture, nineteenth-century Realism, Russian folklore, Art Nouveau and Ancient Russian icons become parts of one coherent narrative rather than isolated museum exhibits.
A Story Rather Than a Catalogue
The experience follows a carefully structured narrative, with entertaining stories about artists, collectors and the people depicted in their works. Unexpected details and human stories bring familiar masterpieces to life — often changing the way guests see a museum visit altogether.
Learn to See the Art
We explore not only what a painting depicts, but how it achieves its effect: composition, colour, light and shadow, perspective, gesture and the relationship between figures. The same attention extends to icons, where we can discuss their materials, preparation, techniques and the principles governing their distinctive visual language.
From Beauty to Meaning
The tour combines the pleasure of looking with a deeper understanding of what is being seen. A landscape can reveal an idea of Russia; a portrait can open a world of personalities and social conventions; a historical painting can expose the values of its age; an icon can introduce an entirely different conception of image and beauty. The result is a more informed — and more rewarding — encounter with Russian art.
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Each request is reviewed personally before final confirmation.
Each request is reviewed personally before final confirmation.
Julia Schelkunova
Founder, Expert Guide for Curated Moscow Tours
Quick Request & Price Estimate
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Practical Information
The historic State Tretyakov Gallery is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, and Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10:00 to 21:00. The Gallery is closed on Mondays. Opening hours may change, including during public holidays and special events.
The historic Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane houses the collection of Russian art from the medieval period through the early twentieth century, including the great masterpieces of Russian Realism, Symbolism and Russian Impressionism.
The New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val focuses primarily on Russian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the Russian avant-garde, Soviet art and contemporary art. They are separate museum buildings with different collections, so this tour takes place at the historic Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane.
The New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val focuses primarily on Russian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the Russian avant-garde, Soviet art and contemporary art. They are separate museum buildings with different collections, so this tour takes place at the historic Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane.
On days when the Gallery closes at 18:00, the tour should normally begin no later than 16:00. On days with a 21:00 closing time, a later start can be arranged. We recommend allowing sufficient time for a relaxed visit rather than scheduling the tour too close to closing.
The guide can meet guests at a location of their choice or in front of the historic Tretyakov Gallery building on Lavrushinsky Lane. The tour may end at the Gallery or at another convenient location, depending on the guests’ onward plans and the itinerary.
A typical private tour lasts around 2–3 hours. The experience can be extended for guests who would like a more in-depth exploration, with the total duration of the Gallery visit and any selected walking experience kept within 4 hours.
Yes. Amateur photography without flash is permitted in the permanent exhibition. Photography rules may differ for temporary exhibitions.
Yes. The Tretyakov Gallery is particularly easy to combine with a sightseeing programme in central Moscow. Red Square is approximately a 15-minute walk from the Gallery, making it possible to visit the Gallery as part of a route between the city's principal landmarks. The experience can also be combined with a guided walk through historic Zamoskvorechye or incorporated into a privately tailored full-day programme.
Admission to the Gallery is tied to the scheduled entry time in order to manage visitor flow and avoid overcrowding in the exhibition rooms. Late arrival of more than 45 minutes after the scheduled start may result in denied entry, and tickets are non-refundable in such cases. We therefore recommend allowing sufficient time for travel and arrival at the Gallery.
Explore selected highlights from this tour in our recent Instagram post.