The Grand Maket Rossiya - For the Child at Heart

One of the great attractions in St. Petersburg, Russia is the stuff my childhood dreams were made of. The Grand Maket, which opened in 2012 is a gigantic model layout themed after Russian life and activities. It features moving trains, cars and buses and figures going about all the various things that people do day to day and in fantastic realism.

The facility was created by Andrey Morozov in 2012 after 5 years of bringing his idea to life. It took those 5 years and 100 plus workers to prepare the monumental diorama. It is the largest of its kind in Russia and the 2nd largest in the world (the largest is in Hamburg, Germany). To completely understand the detail, size, and scale, you need to visit. However, here are some numbers that you might appreciate. It is 800 square meters (8600 square feet). It has 2700 meters of train tracks with 250 operating locomotives and 2700 railcars. The terrain itself took 11 tons of plaster and a month to complete.

Additionally, there are thousands of cars, trucks, and buses and many of them move like normal automobiles using state of the art technology that keeps them obeying traffic signals, passing slower vehicles, and stopping at railroad crossings. Then there are the people and the settings created by the masters behind it all. People are seen in every aspect of daily life including job sites, recreation, farming, and the like. There is even a scene with an attempted prison break and also an entire area allocated to movie sets.

Even more fun are the interactive areas where by pressing a button, the scenes come to life. Some of these scenes involve loading and unloading of vehicles, repair work, and even firefighters responding to a forest fire. To add realism to this behemoth, 500,000 LED lights were installed and the miniature world goes from day to night gradually. Therefore, we have areas that are lit up, but gradually their lights dim as dawn approaches and this slowly happens across the model layout. It's incredible to see and experience.

While no city is specifically named, there are many places within the layout that are suggestive to certain destinations. Siberian oil fields with herds of reindeer, ports that resemble Petersburg and Vladivostok, and mining operations from the Ural mountains.

I have included a video that shows much more than these few pictures can. Please excuse my stuttering voice over (working on getting better on making videos - it's a slow process).

Regardless of your age, The Grand Maket Rossiya will not disappoint you. Plan for a couple hours minimum. We planned on 1 to 2 and my wife had to pull me out after 4. Luckily, there is a cafe and gift shop in case someone needs a break, but your eyes will be overwhelmed with so much to see. Price is very reasonable at about $8 USD for adults and $5 for children. Check out their website here - https://grandmaket.ru/en

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