NGO Аgency for support of cultural initiatives "Tranzit", Tranzit Kaliningrad region, culture Kaliningrad region, Culture

Federal state cultural institution
236006, Russia, Kaliningrad, Petra Velikogo embankment, 1
Tel.: +7 (4012) 538 915, 340244
Fax: +7 (4012) 340211

www.world-ocean.ru
Director – Svetlana Sivkova
Head of international office – Elena Ryabkova

The Museum of the World Ocean is a museum dedicated to the history of exploration and development of the World Ocean. In 2010 the museum will celebrate its 20-year anniversary. The embankment of the historical fleet of the museum is a unique structure in the global maritime museum practice. You can observe the following vessels moored near the museum: “Vityaz”, the largest research ship-museum in the world; the only post-war museum submarine afloat in Russia; the unique functioning ship of space communication “Cosmonaut Viktor Patsaev” with a museum exposition aboard; the only mid-sized fishing trawler-museum in Russia “SRT-129”. The embankment has stretched over to Saint-Petersburg, where the only ice-breaker-museum in Russia, constructed in pre-revolutionary years, – a monument of history of ship-building of federal importance – is moored.

Visitors can enjoy expositions and exhibitions located in the moored vessels, inside the buildings and outside. The museum studies and preserves historical ships and assembles collections featuring the nature of the World Ocean as well as the maritime history and culture of the Baltic. The main fields of the museum’s activities include research, acquisitions, exhibition, cultural, educational, publishing and information work.

Our expositions and exhibitions, innovative ideas, joint cultural and ecological initiatives help us to connect far lands, cultures and individuals.

The museum has collections of seashells and coral skeletons, scientific drawings of the World Ocean inhabitants, works of marine painters, models of vessels assembled by the best Russian shipbuilders, books of XVII-XIX centuries, ancient and modern maps. In the pavilion “Oceanic giants” you can see the largest sperm wale’s skeleton in Russia.

The museum has greatly advanced in preserving and restoring cultural objects, i.e. historical buildings, archeological objects. We needed only 4 months in 2005 to restore the Royal Gate, a monument of the XIX-century architecture, severely damaged by war and time, a symbol of the 750-th anniversary of Königsberg-Kaliningrad. During an extremely short period of time we managed to accomplish the restoration of the monument and open a historical and cultural centre “The Grand Embassy” here.

The museum has an archeological finding “Ship of the XIX century” at its disposal. It took 7 years of restoration works to reconstruct it in a specially built building. So now, if you visit the exposition and exhibition complex “Maritime Königsberg-Kaliningrad”, you will see with your own eyes the way the vessel, its hold and deck look like. There are no such monuments of wood ship-building of the XIX century in Russia and they’re unlikely to be found. Such findings are rare in the European archeology as well.

In 2009 the museum was one of those who initiated the establishment of the association “Maritime Heritage of Russia”.

Regional and international cooperation has always been one of the museum’s priorities. International contacts and partnerships have extended over the years. The museum is a member of ICOM (International Council of Museums), HNSA (Historic Naval Ships Association), ICMM (International Congress of Maritime Museums). The museum holds regular international research conferences on the history of Russian oceanology, participates in research marine expeditions and international exhibitions.

The museum has a well developed network of partnerships, which enables it to hold such international festivals on its embankment as “Water salt”, “Water taste”, the cultural and ecological festival “Moving Baltic Sea” and others. The museum cooperates successfully with its European colleagues and receives exhibitions, develops its main collection and works with artists from the Baltic states. International cooperation also presupposes participation in tourist fairs and expo-centers.

The integrated program of museum’s development till 2012 envisages constructing the main building with aquariums and depository, a yacht harbor of the children’s museum centre “Ocean”, the Museum of Seashore in Svetlogorsk and a historical and cultural centre “Maritime Glory of Russia” in the Friedrichsburg gate.

The Museum of the World Ocean would like to develop cooperation in the following areas:

• conducting research, organizing conferences on the preservation of maritime heritage;
• organizing and holding exhibitions (presenting its own collections at different venues, showing
• projects prepared by other museums);
• exchanging experience in the field of restoration and preservation of vessels, historical and
• architectural monuments, archeological findings, including information exchange on the specificity of national legislations on presentation of ships-museums;
• exchanging experience in the field of museum pedagogics;
• enriching main and archive collection with documents and visual materials, replicas of objects pertaining to the ship “Mars-Vityaz”, the new exposition “Creation of the World” on board of the ship of space communication, the Friedriechsburg citadel, the Grand Embassy of Peter the Great, creation of an exposition in the Museum of Seashore under construction, construction of replicas of historical ships, etc.;
• organizing joint actions, festivals, national feasts, in particular, “Day of Herring”.