However, questions have been raised over what legal rights the Pushkin has to the land on which it intends to build.

The area that the Pushkin Museum is going after is a portion of the Roerich Museum’s ground. Employees of the Roerich are afraid of the expansion, fearing that the cultural monuments located on their territory may be demolished. The Roerich is a private museum housed on a 17th-century estate. It houses painting collections from the travels of Nicolas and Elena Roerich through Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent at the turn of the 20th century.

“The situation has a long story,” Aleksandr Stetsenko, deputy director of the Roerich Museum, told RT. “Irina Antonova, the general director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, was against our plans to continue restoration work on our buildings.”

Nowadays old cultural monuments in the capital are under threat and there are many groups trying to protect Moscow’s old buildings.

“Moscow has lost an enormous amount of historical buildings in last few years,” said Kevin O'Flynn, a Moscow Times journalist and member of the Moscow Architectural Preservation Society. “And with the crisis fading, there is even bigger fear that the buildings will be knocked down.”

In the case of the museums’ dispute, time is running out as the work is to be completed for the Pushkin’s 100th anniversary. The construction depends on a final decision on the expansion plans, which is expected to be made in court in the near future.