Breakdown of Где музей? Он не здесь.
не
not
где
where / wherever
здесь
here
он
he / it (for a masculine noun) / it (for a neuter noun)
Questions & Answers about Где музей? Он не здесь.
Why is не placed right before здесь?
In Russian, to say something 'is not' a certain way or in a certain place, you put the negative word не (not) immediately before the word you are negating. Because Russian drops the verb 'to be' in the present tense, не acts as the negation and goes right in front of the location word, здесь.
Why does the second sentence use он (he) to refer to a museum?
In Russian, all nouns have a grammatical gender, and pronouns must match that gender. The word музей ends in the letter -й, which makes it a masculine noun. Therefore, you must use the masculine pronoun он to mean 'it' when talking about the museum.
Where is the word for 'is' in Где музей? and Он не здесь.?
Russian does not use the verb 'to be' (am, is, are) in the present tense. You simply state the subject and its location. So 'Where is the museum?' is literally just 'Where museum?' (Где музей?) and 'It is not here' is literally 'He not here' (Он не здесь).
Can I use тут instead of здесь in this sentence?
Yes! Both тут and здесь mean 'here' and can usually be used interchangeably in everyday speech. Saying Он не тут would be perfectly correct and natural.