The Nevyansk Icon Museum in Yekaterinburg is a private museum of icons in Russia. Entrance is
free for everyone. The
museum was opened in 1999 by Evgeny Roizman. According to Chief Curator Maksim
Borovik, in its first five years, more than 200,000 persons visited it. The
main purpose of the museum is to save the phenomenon of the Nevyansk icon. There
isn't a great quantity of Nevyansk icons, but each of them is a precious
treasure. The
Nevyansk icon is documented as having existed from 1734 (the icon "Our
Lady of Egypt"), until 1919 ("The Saviour Pantocrator").Yekaterinburg is located in the middle of the Eurasian
continent, on the border of Europe and Asia. There are over thirty museums in
Yekaterinburg, including several museums of Ural minerals and jewelry, art
galleries, and the famous Shigirskaya Kladovaya, or Shigir Collection, which
includes the oldest wood sculpture in the world: the Shigir Idol, found near
Nevyansk and estimated to have been made about 9,500 years ago. Only here can
you see a collection of Nevyansk icons, in the Nevyansk Icon Museum, with more
than 300 icons representing the 18th through the 20th centuries on display.