Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography
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The Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography is the major museum of anthropology and ethnography in St Petersburg, Russia. It has been known as the Peter the Great Museum since 1903, but is often abbreviated to MAE.
The Museum has its origins in the Kunstkamera of Tsar Peter the Great. Originally there were separate museums for anthropology and ethnography, but on 5 December 1878 it was decided to merge them into a single museum with Leopold Schrenk being appointed on November 10th, 1879. It was not until 1887, that the Museum was finally provided with its own exhibition premises attached to Kunstkamera in Tamozhennyi pereulok. On 23 September, 1889, the first exphibition of the unified Museum was opened.
The museum houses 78 watercolours by the Peruvian artist Pancho Fierro, the largest cllection outside Peru. These were brought back by Schrenk following his visit there in 1854.
[edit] Directors of the MAE
- Leopold Schrenk (1879 - 1894)
- Vasily Radlov (1894 - 1918)
- Vasily Bartold (1918 - 1921)
- Evfimii Karskii (1921 - 1930)
- Nikolai Matorin (1930 - 1933)
- Ivan Meshchaninov (1934 – 1937)
- Nikolai Kislyakov ((1945 - 1948)
- Nikolai Girenko (1991 - 1992)
- Alexander Myl’nikov (1992 - 1997)
- Chuner Taksami (1997 - 2001)
- Yuri Chistov (2001 -)
