Flight Cleared for Takeoff: Lermontov Fans Can Now Fly Over the Caucasus and Journey to an Asteroid
St. Petersburg's Mikhail Lermontov Central Library has launched a VR experience that lets visitors explore the poet's life and work. Wearing VR headsets and headphones, participants spend 50 minutes traveling through the places that shaped his biography.
St. Petersburg has found a new way to introduce readers to Russian literary classics. The Lermontov Room at the Mikhail Lermontov Central Library now hosts virtual journeys dedicated to the poet's life and literary legacy.
Discovering a Different Lermontov
All visitors need is a VR headset and headphones. The virtual tour lasts 50 minutes and takes participants soaring above the Caucasus Mountains, through the Tarkhany estate, into a 19th-century prison in St. Petersburg, and inside the office of publisher Andrey Krayevsky. The experience even includes a virtual journey through space to the asteroid named in Lermontov's honor.
The tour's narrative is built on archival documents, personal letters, and memoirs written by Lermontov's contemporaries. As visitors uncover lesser-known episodes from his life, they discover a side of the writer that rarely appears in traditional literary education.
According to Marina Urusova, head of the Lermontov: Naslediye (Lermontov: Legacy) sector, the project represents an entirely new format not only for the library but for Russia as a whole. “This was the first project of its kind. We had nowhere to look for examples because nobody had done anything like this before us, so we had to build everything from the ground up. The project turned out to be quite successful and could become a starting point for many new ideas,” she said.
During the pilot phase, the virtual tour was offered free of charge. Beginning June 15, anyone can join the experience by booking in advance and purchasing a ticket. The library is already considering additional routes and future virtual projects.
Immersive Learning
Libraries and museums across Russia are increasingly evolving into centers for digital cultural education, using immersive technologies to engage audiences with classical heritage. Both online virtual tours and experiences built around dedicated VR equipment are becoming more common. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts has long operated the Virtual Pushkin Museum platform, offering online tours, lectures, virtual exhibitions, and digital collections. It demonstrates how a major cultural institution can bring part of the museum experience into digital space, making it accessible beyond the museum's walls. Yet immersive technologies are no longer limited to large institutions. Smaller cultural organizations are increasingly embracing them as well.
At the Mikhail Lermontov Central Library, visitors do more than watch a virtual experience. They can interact with objects inside the digital environment, making the project substantially more engaging as an educational tool. The format is particularly valuable for school students and university students, offering a more intuitive way to explore literature, history, and cultural heritage.
A Blueprint for Future Projects
The Lermontov VR experience illustrates how Russian libraries are beginning to use immersive technologies to bring classical literature to new audiences. Projects like this could expand cultural tourism while also making educational content more accessible for people with limited mobility.
VR journeys through the lives of writers, artists, and historical figures could become a regular feature in libraries, museums, and educational institutions. In this case, the Lermontov Library offers a practical blueprint: a biographical route built on archival sources, interactive objects, a strong sense of presence, and an experience long enough to rival a traditional guided tour.
The most promising future projects are likely to be those that transform literary biography into an interactive journey, where visitors do more than listen to a story – they step directly into its historical and cultural setting. The role of technology companies will be to provide the digital infrastructure that makes those experiences increasingly realistic, immersive, and compelling.
