Upper Hall, in 1939

Zoological Museum is a part of Moscow University. One of principal tasks of the Museum's activities from the very beginning was to participate in education by providing lectures based on natural objects kept in the mauseum collection. By this, some special courses in zoology were established which are still being conducted in several departments of the Biological Faculty of Moscow University.
But it was not only students to whom the Museum addressed its activity. Much attention always was being paid to the public which was attended the Museum' exhibitions nearly all the time long of Museum' existence. The current annual attendance is about 180-200 thousands. And it was of special importance that children constitute the most part of the Museum visitors.
What could be watched in the Museum?
There are only recent animals that are exhibited in the Zoological Museum, except for the mammoth skeleton that meets visitors at the base of the main staircase. All principal animal taxa are represented, from unicellulates to birds and mammals. The exhibition is arrange systematically, the principle inherited from the very first years of the Museum. The animals are shown in accordance to the Natural System, a phylum by phylum, an order by order, to reflect their evolutionary relationships.
The main portion of animal diversity, from unicellulates to reptiles, is shown in the Lower Hall, on the ground floor of the Museum. The birds and mammals are displayed in the Upper Hall, on the first floor just above the Lower Hall. The so called Bony Hall is also situated on the first floor, its exhibition shows anatomy of vertebrate animals as an illustration of the fundamental lows of biological evolution.