Kazan, May 12, 2026 /Kabar/. Today the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan opened an exhibition “Heavenly Garden: the Art of Russia’s Islam”.
“Heavenly Garden: the Art of Russia’s Islam” is a joint project of the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Institute for Street Art Research, the Museum of Oriental Art, and the Marjani Foundation. The exhibition is dedicated to Islamic art and garden culture and displays art objects from different eras with integration of contemporary art.
It features objects and contemporary artists’ works from Tatarstan, Daghestan, Bashkortostan, and Crimea.
The core concept engages emotional perception of gardens and their place in Muslim culture: from a symbol of paradise to social connections. Exhibition consists of six zones: Liminal world, Garden, Spiritual world, Love, Physical world, Death.
Alfrid Bustanov, curator of the exhibition and advisor of the Director General of the National museum said: “Heavenly Garden is a key metaphor and an important space for Islamic cultures on a global scale. Garden brings together poetry and objects, sensual experiences and silence. Apples of eternal bliss are being sown in the garden — we find references to them both in theological texts and in everyday objects».
Old manuscripts and photo albums are accompanied by audio stories and light installations, museum objects come together with contemporary artists’ interventions, floral compositions and olfactory objects.
Polina Iezh, curator of the exhibition and co-founder of the Institute for Street Art Research: “The integration of contemporary art into a traditional museum is an important task today. Garden imagery can be traced in the works of modern authors like a footprint on water, but it is all the more interesting for the viewer to recognize this connection, to explore how the roots in the current visual culture manifest themselves.”
The exhibition “Heavenly Garden: the Art of Russia’s Islam” seeks to answer the following questions: what is Islamic art in Russia and is there a shared space of Islamic art in our country.
Ilya Zaitsev, curator of the exhibition and deputy of the General Director of the Museum of Oriental Art: “Historical circumstances notwithstanding, the art of all three Islamic regions of modern Russia – the Crimea, the North Caucasus and the Volga region – demonstrates amazing unity of imagery and similarity of ideas about beauty. Differences in specific stylistic solutions, color or compositional schemes only emphasizes this unity.”
The exhibition will run untill September 29, 2026.