This exhibition highlights, in a nutshell, the cooperation of Russia and the Netherlands in the development of medicine and medical education in Russia. The medical worlds of Russia and the Netherlands initially seem pretty separate, but the opposite is true. From the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries onwards, the Dutch and, in particular, doctors with a doctorate from Leiden university had a strong influence on the development of the medical curriculum and the organisation of Medicine in Russia. This influence lasted until the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Until 1700 Russia had no higher education, only medical schools to train barber-surgeons. Meanwhile, Leiden University with its medical faculty, led in the Netherlands, Europe, and far beyond. Peter the Great wanted to reform Medicine in Russia. He visited Leiden University in 1697, 1698 and 1717. He bought important medical heritage and shipped it to Russia. Tsar Peter built together with Nicolaas Bidloo, a Dutch doctor medicinae trained in Leiden, the first medical hospital school with an anatomical theatre and a botanical garden in Moscow. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Bidloo school in Moscow was ultimately merged into the predecessor of the Military Medical Academy SM Kirov in Saint Petersburg.

This mutual medical cultural heritage is an unknown area for most people in the Netherlands, the Russian Federation, and the world.

This virtual exhibition is the result of the international cooperation between Russian and Dutch partners. Without our partners, contributors, supporters and sponsors, this exhibition would never have been possible.