Last year, the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography turned 300 years old. This is the successor to the first state public museum in Russia, created by the emperor in 1714. The Kunstkamera is one of the world's largest and oldest ethnographic museums, with more than 1.2 million items in its collection.
Just like theirs
According to the creator, she was supposed to become a conductor of the scientific thought of Europe in Russian society. The Kunstkamera is a museum based on the example of European countries. The collection was based on the collections brought by Peter I from the first diplomatic trip to European countries as part of the Great Embassy. Before him, none of the Russian tsars made an attempt to visit Europe.
For a whole year, Peter I was incognito abroad as a detachment of Peter Mikhailov, and together with the embassy he visited a number of countries. He studied personal collections, cabinets of scientists, talked with European experts, invited them to work in Russia, and simultaneously studied craft and science. Peter took his second trip twenty years later.
Peter the First in Europe
Details of his visits are known that characterize his interests. For example, having arrived in Dresden in the evening, after dinner at one o’clock in the morning, Peter went to get acquainted with the Kunstkamera’s collection, where he stayed until the morning, especially carefully studying the section of mathematical tools and craft tools. The exhibits of the Kunstkamera extremely interested him, on the second and third day of his stay in Dresden, after watching military exercises, the Zeichhaus and the foundry, he returned to them again.
In Holland, learning that a collector kept a Roman sarcophagus, the Russian tsar expressed a desire to see him. After leaving, the owner wrote that Tsar Peter the Great had the honor to see his office, but when he found out that the thing was stored in a dark pantry, he demanded a candelabra with candles and examined the entire sarcophagus and its individual figures, kneeling.
Free entry
There was no decree on the creation of the Kunstkamera, but the foundation of the museum was associated with the decree of Peter I on the transfer to St. Petersburg of a personal collection and library, as well as a collection of “naturals” and books of the Pharmacy Chancellery.
The collections were placed in the Tsar’s Summer Palace , later, in 1719, in the confiscated chambers of the boyar Kikin, in the same year the exhibits of the Kunstkamera were publicly available by order of the king.
According to an old legend, Peter I, entering the museum with rarities, announced that now everyone has the opportunity to get acquainted with the structure of the human body and animals, as well as study many insects, let people look at the diverse world of the inhabitants of the planet. The tsar’s assistant, Count Yaguzhinsky, noted that the Kunstkamera (Petersburg) needed financial support and suggested that they pay one ruble per visit. The tsar did not like this offer , and he decided to do the opposite, to treat each guest who came with tea, coffee or vodka. Soon, 400 rubles were allocated to the chief caretaker a year to treat visitors. This tradition was successful and existed even during the reign of Anna Ioannovna - all classes, without exception, could come and, at will, enjoy coffee with a sandwich or vodka.
The choice fell ...
The Kunstkamera is a universal place where the collected exhibits in a small space introduce everyone to the world in all its diversity. Exhibits were collected throughout the country on the basis of government decrees. An important role in expanding the collection was played by domestic academic expeditions, receipts from private individuals, and purchases from abroad.
The collection was constantly growing, so a more spacious room was required, and the remoteness from the center of the Kikin Chambers diminished the importance that the king put into this "academic" project. According to legend, once Peter was walking along Vasilyevsky Island and accidentally noticed two pine trees, the branch of one of them grew into the trunk of the other so that it was difficult to determine which one it belongs to. This phenomenon, according to legend, prompted him to the idea of building a museum of rarities in this place.
New building
A new special building was laid in 1718, Mattarnovi became the author of the project. After him, until 1734, three more architects were engaged in chorus expansion. The construction moved very slowly, Peter the Great found only the walls. The year after his death, the collection was moved to an unfinished building. Finally, the construction was completed, and Europe gasped - she had not seen anything like it yet. It was so thought out that it has stood up to date without major repairs.
The building was built in the traditions of Peter's Baroque, consisting of two three-story buildings, their shape is connected by a baroque multi-tiered tower, which has a complex dome completion.
Peter's project
Ten years after the creation of the collection, Peter the Great embodied the second part of the "academic" project. In 1724, the emperor and the Senate established the Academy of Sciences. Now the Kunstkamera and the Library were the first institutions and the “cradle” of the Russian Academy.
The museum as part of the Academy of Sciences began a new life. The richest collections were concentrated within its walls, scientific processing and systematization was carried out, the exposition was supervised by the leading scientific forces of the country - all this turned it into a unique, truly scientific institution, in Europe there were no analogues in the organization of work.
The Kunstkamera is not only the scientific base of the Academy of Sciences, but also the most important cultural and educational institution. Many of Russia's leading scientists worked in its walls, including M. V. Lomonosov; he composed a description of the minerals that were stored in the Museum.
Museum exhibits
Impressive people are not recommended to watch human developmental abnormalities. Not everyone can afford to make a spectacle of what the freaks of the Kunstkamera look like: Siamese twins who could not be separated (photo of the skeleton), a child born as a result of incest of relatives, and others. The photograph also shows a wooden helmet brought from Alaska (Mitha Island). Mongol shamans used a flute made of a human femur. A curiosity is a Chinese teapot, boiling from solar heat. There is a Large Academic (Gottorp) Globe, it reproduces the current rotation mechanism, astronomy with a map of the starry sky inside.
Tickets to the Kunstkamera can be purchased from 11:00 to 17:00 every day, except Monday, at the following address: University Embankment, 3.