Every year on May 18, the whole world celebrates the International Day of Museums.
On this day, most of the world's museums are open for free. We decided to tell you about the most unusual exhibitions in museums around the world.
USA: THE MOST ALIEN
While humanity is dreaming of meeting with representatives of other worlds, the International UFO Museum has been operating in the United States for many years.
It is located in the American town of Roswell, famous for the fact that a spacecraft with aliens on board allegedly crashed in its vicinity in 1947. Despite the fact that the official science does not possess scientifically confirmed alien artifacts, there is no shortage of exhibits in this museum. Mostly in the halls of the museum are photographs and articles from the scene of the 1947 event.
Among the unique exhibits of the museum (of course, if they are really genuine), one can note parts of the crashed flying saucer. In addition, the museum displays dummies of alien creatures - such as they are seen by ufologists, as well as models of flying saucers. The museum has a spacious lecture hall, which regularly hosts interesting lectures and symposia on ufological topics, gathering many listeners.
Promotional video:
JAPAN: THE MOST INNOVATIVE
The most technologically advanced country in the world today is Japan. It is not surprising that the best museum in the world dedicated to innovative technologies is located in this country.
Miraikan Museum occupies a six-story building in the center of Tokyo, entering which a person feels like in the world of the future. This is not surprising.
The National Museum of Science and Innovation of Japan is considered one of the main values of the country, whose name translated into Russian means "the museum of the future." All the most advanced technologies in the world are collected here. At the same time, absolutely all the exhibits in the museum are not only allowed, but also needed to be touched.
If desired, any visitor to the museum can independently assemble a person from interactive parts of his body. Fans of space travel for a while can feel like astronauts orbiting the Earth in its orbit during an interactive virtual flight.
And, of course, the innovative museum in Japan was not without robots. They are everywhere here - from home appliances with artificial intelligence to the humanoid android robot Asimo, walking through the halls of the museum. At the same time, a humanoid android is able to conduct small talk with any of the visitors who wish to exchange a couple of phrases with him.
On one of the floors of the museum, there are the most incredible scientific laboratories, in which you can become a participant in interesting experiments and even simulate natural disasters.
CZECH REPUBLIC: THE MOST CREEPY
For most people, at the sight of a human skeleton, an unpleasant chill involuntarily runs down the back. What can you say about the visitors of the Ossuary Museum located in the town of Sedlec in the Czech Republic?
The history of this museum is truly terrible, and the exhibits cause mystical horror. At the beginning of the XIV century, a plague epidemic broke out in the country. The number of deaths from a terrible disease in Sedlec and its surroundings alone exceeded 30 thousand people.
In 1318, after a plague epidemic, cemeteries could no longer accommodate a huge number of the dead, so the old bones were thrown into the basements of the chapels, and the dead were buried in their place. The remains of about 40 thousand people have accumulated in the Sedlec Monastery.
However, they were not destroyed or reburied elsewhere. Dumped in disorder, they lay for over a hundred years in the basements of the chapels. Subsequent events simply do not fit into the head of an ordinary person.
In 1511, a local monk went down to the basement of the chapel and, deciding to put things in order, made three huge pyramids of human bones. Several more centuries passed, and in the 18th century a local prince by the name of Schwarzenberg instructed his woodcarver Františk Rint, using numerous bones and skulls, to create an interior decoration corresponding to the name of the underground chapel. The prince's wish was fulfilled.
Using the bones of 40 thousand skeletons, the carver created the Schwarzenberg coat of arms and the interior of the chapel. Today, anyone can visit the museum-ossuary, if, of course, there is enough courage to do so.
RUSSIA: THE LAND OF MUSEUMS
Russia is a country of museums. It is difficult to argue with this fact. In addition to large state museums, small but fascinating private museums proliferate every year in the country.
Even city-museums appear, like Pereslavl-Zalessky. In addition to several monasteries and a museum of the Russian fleet, the city has a museum of Russian fairy tales, a museum of an iron, a museum of a steam locomotive, a museum of gramophone records, a museum of artillery and others.
In our country, there are such unusual museums that it’s surprising how their organizers came up with the very idea of their creation. There is a museum of … air in the village of Vasilyevo near Tver. Its founders have amassed an impressive collection of apothecary flasks and bottles with air bubbles from different eras.
The mammoth museum located in cold Yakutsk is considered to be no less unique. It's not easy to get into it. To do this, you need to go down to a depth of 20 meters, where in the permafrost in a specially cut cave you can see the remains of a mammoth and other animals that lived on Taimyr more than 20 thousand years ago.
There is even a Museum of the Sun in Russia, located in Novosibirsk. The total number of exhibits in this amazing museum exceeds one and a half thousand items.
And, of course, in Russia you can visit the Museum of Russian Vodka. The first museum, telling about the history of this amazing drink, was opened in Uglich. In the halls of the museum, more than 800 varieties of this popular drink all over the world are collected, for the first time under the name "Bread Wine" appeared in Russia …
CHINA: THE MOST PREHISTORICAL
There is no such person who would not like to see the world of dinosaurs, gigantic lizards that once lived on our planet with his own eyes. A similar opportunity is provided to its guests by the world's largest dinosaur museum, located in the Chinese city of Zigong.
Its opening took place in 1987, and today it covers an area of 3600 sq. meters, on which the skeletons of dinosaurs, recreated in full size, are located. The halls of the museum display the remains of precisely those prehistoric creatures that lived at the site of the museum.
When asked why the world's largest dinosaur museum was built in this city, and not, for example, in Beijing, the museum staff replied that it was here in 1975 that they unexpectedly found many remains of prehistoric dinosaurs.
During the gas development, workers accidentally stumbled upon many fragments of giant bones. The gasmen were replaced by paleontologists, who removed more than a hundred dinosaur skeletons from the earth. This finding made it possible to answer many questions about the evolution of life on Earth that had not previously been answered.
Dmitry Sokolov