Abstract. The author, well-known authority in museology and museum designer of modern Russia, discourses on the problems of semiotics of a city in Russian culture, basing on the Antziferov’s “local-history” method. Practical part of the paper reveals two Polyakov’s museum design projects “The City of Ryzan as a Soul of Nation” and “The City of Ekaterinburg as a Soul of Empire” represented as the so called museum-mythological hypotheses.

Key words: museum design, urban semiotics, urban mythology, Nicolas Anziferov, museum exposition, genius loci.


Polyakov Taras Panteleymonovich, 
Dr. in History,
Head of the Museology and Cultural Heritage Actualization Dept.
Russian Institute for Cultural Research (Moscow),
e-mail: ricu@dol.ru