Moscow may be better known for sites such as St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square, however, it is also home to the world's largest paleontological institute (left). This affiliate of the Russian Academy of Sciences has more paleontologists under one roof than any other institution in the world. They have collections from all over the former Soviet Union and the world and researchers studying such diverse questions as the origin of life, dinosaurs from Mongolia, and mammals from cave faunas in Georgia. The breakup of the Soviet Union has had both good and bad effects on the institute. The freedom to visit colleagues in other parts of the world has increased, but their budget has been slashed so that they can hardly afford to make use of this new opportunity. The University of California Museum of Paleontology has set up a long-term cooperative agreement with the Paleontological Institute (PIN), one which has resulted in several mutual visits, student exchanges and cooperative projects.

The Museum of Paleontology, which is run by the Institute, has beautiful public exhibits, largely unheard of outside of Moscow. Representing nearly every type of fossil organism imaginable, the exhibits are particularly rich in Mongolian dinosaurs, synapsids (relatives of mammals) from the Perm region of Russia, and Precambrian fossils, representing the dawn of life, from Siberia. Some of these exhibits have toured the world, visiting Australia, Japan, Finland, and the United States. The Paleontological Institute now has a website that you can visit at www.paleo.ru/. Though the site is in Russian and does not yet have an English version (as of 9/05), contact information can be found.

Step in out of the cold and enter the PIN exhibits....