On the 21st of July 2005 a Virtual Branch of the Russian Museum was opened in the Tver Picture Gallery. Virtual Branches of the Russian Museum are part of the integrated long-term program of co-operation between the Russian Museum and art museums of other Russian cities.
     The program was launched in 2003 in Moscow. Since then, the Russian Museum exhibitions have been received by the art museums of Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Samara, Petrozavodsk, Kaliningrad, Murmansk and Perm with subsequent openings in these cities of a Russian Museum Virtual Branch. The goal of the program is to make the treasures of the outstanding depositary of national pictorial art accessible in even the remotest parts of Russia, to share experiences and to utilize the unique scientific, methodological, organizational and production potential of the State Russian Museum for the creation of a common united cultural and informational area on the territory of Russia. It also aims to strengthen relationships between Russian museums under new social and economic conditions.
     The Virtual Branch of the Russian Museum is actually an information and education center. There are 27 such centers planned for the Leningrad Region alone. They already exist in Sosnovy Bor, Lisiy Nos, Kirishi, St. Petersburg Pedagogical University and Moscow State University and will work on a permanent basis.
     Each center may be comprised of a scientific-informational zone, an educational zone and a multi-media centre. The first one offers Russian Museum publications - albums, catalogues, methodological study aids, CD and DVD multimedia programs, films featuring museum collections and history. There is an educational zone where children or adults can study using the principles developed by the Russian Center of Museum Pedagogics founded in 1990. Visitors of the multi-media center have an opportunity to look through catalogues of temporary exhibitions or to learn the history of palaces and art collections of the Russian Musuem through the use of virtual reality technology and 3D computer simulations.
     The project “Virtual Branches of the Russian Museum” is sponsored by AFK “System” and OAO “Mobile Tele Systems”.