Today, as every 18th of May since 1977, the global museum community comes together for the International Museum Day. This year, the celebration is being marked in the most exceptional circumstances since its establishment. It seems like a strange time to celebrate, as thousands of museums remain closed and the uncertainty of what will happen in the coming months overwhelms our thoughts. Yet it is precisely now that we need to spread the message of the International Museum Day.

With the theme Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion, International Museum Day 2020 aims to become a rallying point for both museums and civil society in general, because this day is not only about museums: it is a celebration of every single person who makes them the places of wonder that they are. It is about wide-eyed schoolchildren, passionate curators, art enthusiasts, dedicated security people, occasional visitors. It is about our natural heritage and its outstanding biodiversity. It is about our common memory and the diversity that unites us in our differences.

Offering such a topic for discussion at the International Museum Day 2020, ICOM focuses on making museums a unifying platform that will simultaneously reflect the diversity of public opinions and create tools that will overcome the bias in what they show and what they tell at their expositions.

The museum Collection team congratulates all partners, friends and colleagues from Russian and foreign museums on International Museum Day.

We hope you have remained in a good mood, despite the fact that we have all been held hostage by the long quarantine. We are sure that, relying on each other’s shoulder, we will surely overcome all the problems!

We want to add positive emotions and share the links to sections of the museum website - "Video Archive", in which you can watch a variety of video selections - a lecture course and video excursions' sequence, as well as listen to thematic musical compilations in our "Sound Library".