Main building.

The Moscow City museum is one of the city's oldest museums.  Its collection was originally based on exhibits in the Moscow pavilion  at the All-Russian Artistic and Industrial exhibition, which was held in Nizhny Novgorod in 1896.  There, the Moscow City Administration displayed its achievements in providing the city with improved medical and sanitary conditions, public education and charity works.   In the same year the Museum of Moscow Municipal Facilities and Services was opened by order of the Moscow City Duma. The Museum was located in one of the Krestovsky Towers. The Museum changed its name and location several times over the course of its history.

From 1925, the museum was located in the Sukhareva  Tower and from 1934  until the present it has been housed in the Church of St John the Dvine. The Church of John the Divine near Kitaigorodskaya stena (Novaya ploshchad, 12) was built in 1825 - 1837 and replaced the former cathedral of 1658 which was constructed in brick. The first wooden church was built at the end of  the 15th century on the site of the former small defense fortress. In the first half of the 16th century in this same place the Kitaygorodskaya stena was constructed and the church became a part of Moscow.   The church was designed in Empire style.

The museum of  Moscow Municipal Facilities and Services from 1940 until 1986 renamed as the Museum of the History and Reconstruction of Moscow  . From 1987 it was the Moscow City Museum. In 2004 , when museum  had first branches it began to refer to the United Museums Association “Moscow City museum

In 1947 the exhibition was arranged in chronological order for the first time, and remained like this until the mid-seventies.

At present the museum shows two main exhibitions From the settlement to the capital: the history of Moscow from the 12th to the 17th centuries and Moscow at the beginning of the XX century, both made up from the collection of Moscow City Museum. There are around one million objects in the  Museum's collection: paintings (A. Vasnetsov, I. Ivazovsky, V. Polenov, V. Surikov, V. Nesterov, R. Falk and others), graphic works, sculptures, documents, photographs, archeological and ceramic exhibits, rare books, numismatic collections, furniture, fabric and clothing items. The collection of everyday objects such as porcelain, glass, arms or numismatics serves to conveys the life of Muscovites through the ages.

The United Museum Association Moscow City Museum includes The Old English Court,

Moscow Archeological Museum, the Museum of Christ the Savior Cathedral, the Kuzminki Russian Country Estate Museum, the  Lefortovo Museum, the Mirek Russian Accordion Museum.