In the second half of the 20th century, the very first public queer museums were created in the West. Later, the most famous museums in the world (such as Prado and the British Museum) not only started hosting short-term queer exhibitions, but also created special guided tours for their permanent collections.

The first “gay museum” was created in Saint Petersburg, Russia, at the end of the 19th century, when a private owner compiled a collection of different objects and books in their apartment. Unfortunately, we don’t know the details of that story. In the 1990s, Elena Gusyatinskaya created the Archive of Lesbians and Gays in Moscow. Later, activists began establishing queer public libraries and hold history exhibitions alongside private collectors. In 2017, an online LGBTQ+ museum was created. Finally, in 2020, Pyotr Voskresenskiy arranged unofficial tours around the Hermitage which created the base for this catalog. In 2022, he also announced the opening of the first public Queer museum.