Family Things to Do and See in Perm, Ural Region, Russia

Check out the bones of a mammoth, visit an artsy “Attic”, listen to a grasshopper play the fiddle, study the Sun through a telescope, and have a look at the Permian Czar Cannon – we have made you a list of all the most interesting things for you to do with your  kids in Perm. 

 

Kids Museums in Perm, Perm Tours for Kids 

The history of the Kama Region is presented at the Perm Natural History Museum exhibition from ancient times to the 21^st century. In the main hall, you can find out how Russia gained possession of Ural, get acquainted with a mining plant device, and get a better look at the life of peasants and mountain inhabitants of various time periods. After visiting the museum, they offer the visitors to participate in a quiz with questions regarding the exhibition. 

 

 

The branches of the Natural History Museum are dedicated to separate historical time periods. For example, in the Underground Printing Museum House they show kids the hiding place in the chess table, tell them about the secret chemical laboratory, and allow you to print something all by yourself. They also tell you about the rebellion of 1905 in the Diorama Museum where an entire “time street” is set up with panoramas of the Red Square, Bolshoi Street, the railroad station, and country and urban dwellings from the beginning of the 20^th century.  

Presented at the Perm Ancient History Museum is a large collection of fossils and skeletons of dinosaurs and mammoths. You can feel them and study them in the Discovery Room with microscopes and a “paleontologist tent”. Operating for preschoolers between the age of 4 and 7 on Saturdays is the “Museumosaurus Workshop” where they get to find out where chalk, salt, and coal comes from and have a look at the most ancient fish and birds on the Earth.  

 

 

Military technology is presented on the open air on the territory of the Perm Artillery Museum. There you can check out zenith weapons, rockets, tanks, and cannons right outside, one of which is the famous Perm Czar Cannon. Inside the building of the museum, they do thematic tours and games for children and on May 9^th they hold events there in honor of Victory Day. 

Located out of town is Khokhlovka Wooden Architecture Museum. Presented in the thematic courtyards are 23 residential and utility facilities built between the 17^th and the 20^th centuries: there they have a hunting camp, a salt manufacturing and utility complex, and estates of the Southern and Northwestern Kama Region. You can take a peek in each of the buildings and on Maslenitsa, Christmas, and other holidays, Khokhlovka hosts traditional celebrations. 

In the Perm Modern Art Museum, a kids project called Attic is open for families. They invite parents for a visit there with children between the ages of 3 and 14 and they hold drawing and art object creation workshops, street art lessons, games, and flashmobs. On Cosmonautics Day, the Attic turns into a shuttle and on Halloween it turns into a haunted castle. For preschoolers between the age of 3 and 5 years old, they have open workshops called Little Pencils and for kids between the ages of 12 and 14 – an experimental course on art history. 

 

 

At creative work station Bartminsky Pharmacy, they hold workshops once a week at A Sea for Kids. At the lessons, they teach children between the age of 3 and 13 to create objects for the interior and decorations. In A Sea for Kids, they try to keep coming up with new tasks for the kids to do: heading into spring, they work on birdhouses, in April they make “space objects”, and around Easter they make “lukoshki” along with nests with rag chicks made by hand.   

If you want, you can visit Microworld Exhibition without a magnifying glass. Although if you have one handy, or a microscope, you can catch a glimpse of a flea with horseshoes and an “invisible book”, and check out a portrait of Pushkin along with several of his lines engraved on a grain of rice. The exhibition has its own micro-orchestra: a grasshopper playing on a violin and a cricket sitting on a tiny piano. You can even listen to them by putting on a pair of headphones. Anyone who likes can also try on the role of a micro-miniature artist and engrave a pattern on a grain of rice.     

Kids between the ages of 3 and 12 years old are provided everything they need to conduct experiments at Scientific Entertainment Park. It features a fun house, “Water World” with huge soap bubbles, the “Black Room” with light and plasma exhibits, rooms with optical illusions, an “eternal motor”, and magnetic constructions. For kids older than 5 years old, they teach art lessons and do chemical and physics shows as well. 

 

 

At the movies in the dome-shaped hall of the Perm Planetarium, kids get to find out interesting facts about space, the stars, the planets, and black holes. Before the shows, they set up interactive activities and game travels of the Space Marine. The planetarium features a telescope as well that you can look at the Sun through. Also situated right in front of the building is an observation deck with a view of the Kama.  

During the intermission, visitors of the Perm Circus are offered to stop by the Circus Arts Museum. Assembled there is a collection of circus posters, magicians’ hats, clown costumes, toys, and an inventory. The circus also holds tours to the stable and the open rehearsals of the performers. 

Around 1700 miniature shoes and boots out of pottery, glass, wood, and porcelain are assembled in a private collection at the Shoe Gallery. They do thematic tours for kids there and at their workshops they teach visitors how to create their own miniature boot out of polymer clay. 

 

 

Perm Kids Theaters 

Puppet shows are performed for children 3 years and older at the Perm Puppet Theater. Most appropriate for the smallest of children would be the stories of Teremok, The Cat’s House, Masha and the bear and for a little bit older children – the Kids Album based on the musical productions of Chaykovsky, The Night Before Christmas, and the Princess on the Pea. They offer to create a home puppet theater and toy artists for it and the Family Club lessons at the theater.  

Performances for children practically constitute the entire repertoire of Tuki Luki Puppet Theater. In Tuki Luki Cubbyhole, they do a shady performance of Teremok for children 2 years and up, which is 25 minutes long. In the Small Hall of the Gagarin Culture House, they have The Three Bears, A Mom for the Baby Mammoth, Cradle Tales, and other performances for children 3 years and older along with the “adult” Cherry Garden for children 14 years and up.  

 

 

Interactive theater Fairytale Turmoil opened in April 2014 for children between the ages of 3 and 5. Included in its repertoire are just two shows – Chudo Repka and The Adventures of Kolobok, however all of the visitors get the chance to actively participate in it – both adults and children. They let you sit down right on the floor at the shows and afterwards they offer games for your children to play in a soft area.

Then there is also the Fairytale Room at Gubernia Perm National Art House. Playing on the wall of the chamber are shows based on the stories of Andersen, Piero, and the Grimm brothers for children between the ages of 2 and 5 and kids between the ages of 5 and 12. They present old-time stories in a new way, since they add in elements of popular dancing, customs and games to each of the actors. 

Pippi, The Bremen Musicians, and The Story of the Lost Time are performed for children at Theater Theater. The rest of their repertoire is most suitable for schoolchildren and adults: for example they perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Fortuneless Young Girl, The Overcoat, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina.   

 

 

Appropriate for family viewing at the Perm Youth Theater are shows, such as At the Ark at Eight, The Night Before Christmas, and Gilded Foreheads. For children 4 years and up, they have performances about Karlsson on the Roof, Pashka Fakira, Yemel, and Baba Yaga. For schoolchildren they have Lady McBeth of Mtensk and The Noble Peasant. 

At Hammer Stage they perform children’s shows (Agatha Comes Home, The Unwritten Story) as well as shows for teenagers (like Natasha’s Dream). Furthermore, they hold plastic molding, drawing, and craft workshops before each showing of The Unwritten Story. 

The repertoire of The Actor’s House features puppet shows for children, dramas, and comedies for students as well. For the smallest of children, they offer performances, such as The Silver Hoof, Clownish Tales, and How the Winter Spent the Winter and for a little bit older kids they have The Little Mermaid, Yevgeny Onegin, and Miriam.  

At The Perm Opera and Ballet Theater they have come up with the Music for Children cycle for children between the ages of 1 and 3. If you have preschoolers, you should consider checking out the ballets The Bluebird and Princess Florin and Swan Lake, visiting the opera Twelve Months, and if you have kids going to school, you should consider, for instance, Yevgeny Onegin or the ballet Romeo and Juliet.   

 

 

They do musical cycles and concerts for the whole family at The Perm Philharmonia as well. For future mothers, they’ve prepared a three concert program called I Will Give You Life and for children they have begun issuing passes for Organ for Children, Sunday Stories, and Snow White in the Land of Music.   

 

Perm Zoo and Oceanarium

Over 300 species of animals and birds inhabit the Perm Zoo. In the Pushkin Section you can check out a family of snow badgers, in Kopytny you can check out mountain goats and buffalos, and in the Summer Bird Section you can check out peacocks and wood grouses. In the zoo there are bird, exotic animal, elephant, and monkey areas. Also open during the warm season is the Kids Petting Zoo with guinea pigs, rabbits, rams, goatlings, and chickens. 

 

 

Water inhabitants are presented at the Perm Underwater Aquarium. The first floor leads you to freshwater and saltwater aquariums featuring various fish, Nile crocodiles, and vulturine turtles. Then on the second floor you can check out snakes, lizards, scorpions, spiders, and other insects.  

Inhabitants flutter right above visitors’ heads over at the Live Butterfly Park. Located beyond thickets of exotic plants is an insectarium with cocoons turning into butterflies. Also living there are lizards, turtles, giant cockroaches, beetles, and finches.

Open in the village of Zaosinovo is an ostrich farm. Aside from ostriches, they also raise buffalos there, piglets, rabbits, and a pet bird. All of the visitors are allowed to feed and take photographs with them and they also provide tours at the farm.  

 

 

Kids Attractions and Nice Places to Take Your Kids for a Walk in Perm 

Visitors of all ages will be able to find amusement at Culture and Recreation Park in the Name of Gorky. There are roller coasters, a free fall tower, Dracula House, and other extreme entertainment assembled in the Youth Section as well as “kiddie” and family carousels in the Kids Section. In the summer of 2013 this park opened up a 50 meter wheel of fortune with glass cabins. On holidays the culture and recreation park organizes entertaining programs with animators for children.  

 

 

One more place beloved by the city residents is Esplanade. On this square, they hold city festivities and White Nights in Perm. In the Summer they organize hot air balloon flights there and in the summer they pave a skating rink, they decorate the largest Christmas tree in the city, and create an carve ice figures. 

Also suitable for taking your family for a walk would be Mindovsky Square. This park features a kids play station and attractions and you can also sit in some shade by the trees or ride a horse. 

You get to see a Buddha Tree, a candy tree, and a snake tree at the Perm Botanical Garden. The garden is divided into different sections: presented there are plants from a Mexican desert and the tropical jungles of the Amazon, fruit trees planted separately, as well as plants in the dolphinarium. You can only get inside the green house on a tour and you can go for a walk all by yourself along the ecotrail. 

 

 

They invite you to come rollerblade during any time of the year at Planeta Skating Rink in Razgulyai Mall. They have a play room there for children and they have a café there for the whole family to sit down or go inside a 5-D movie theater. 

Operating year round in Perm are indoor ice rinks in Orlyonok Sport Palace, Neftyanik Sports Center, and in the winter they pave open-air skating rinks at Esplanade and at Youth and Labor Reserves Stadiums.

 

You can find our kids Perm event calendar for every day of the week here.

 

Photos: kidsreview.ru, wikipedia.org, vk.com/permm_museum, vk.com/park_nauka, vk.com/shoe_gallery, vk.com/club10580406, vk.com/id90972986, vk.com/permopera, zoo.perm.ru, vk.com/parkperm, vk.com/bot_sad_psu_perm