Moscow Zoo is opening an academy for staff and volunteers

The Moscow Zoo is opening a new educational centre with the operating name of the Moscow Zoo Academy. An agreement to this effect is to be signed on 18 May, International Museum Day.

The aim of the academy will be upgrading services at the Moscow Zoo, which employs over 700 staff members and 150 volunteers, and other zoos in Russia and the rest of the CIS.

Every month, Russian and foreign experts will conduct training in sales, marketing, hospitality and tourism, organising outreach activities, logistics, legal backing of zoo activities and accounting management.

Zoo employees will also attend English language lessons to be able to talk to foreign tourists. Participants in the trainings will be given certificates.

The agreement about establishing the academy will be signed by Svetlana Akulova, General Director of the Moscow Zoo and chair of the Russian Association of Zoos and Aquaria, and Bjorn Stenvers, a representative of the Amsterdam Museum Academy and the Official Museums of Amsterdam. They will develop the educational centre together.

Such programmes have been a success in Russia and abroad, including the Singapore Culture Academy (2015), the ICOM International Centre for Museum Studies (2013), the Museum Education Centre in Armenia (2014), the Rostov Kremlin Museum Academy (2014), the Amsterdam Museum Academy (2015) and the Aruba Museum Academy (2017).