Have you ever been to the Victory Day parade? Even if you were not personally present on Red Square that day, you must have watched this solemn procession on television at least once. One of the largest and most spectacular parts of the action is the demonstration of units of military equipment that are in service with the Russian Federation. Powerful tanks, strong armored personnel carriers - where else will you see this?
If you are interested in combat vehicles, their history, functionality, appearance, if you want to personally make sure that our country is reliably protected from enemy intrusions, you will find the Museum of armored vehicles. Nizhny Tagil, Kubinka, Prokhorovka - these are at least three settlements where you can see and even touch the real combat vehicles in close proximity.
And you can get acquainted with the museums themselves, learn about them important and irreplaceable information for tourists, without leaving your home. Just read this article.
Three tankmen, three merry friends...
Surely, most of us will mentally continue this famous song. "The crew of a combat vehicle" is sung in it further. To understand that the three tankers are really brave and courageous guys, the songs are enough, but what kind of car is this, you can find out at the Museum of Armored Equipment in Nizhny Tagil. There is a unique collection of military vehicles.
Museum of armored vehicles in Nizhny Tagil
Address: Russia, Sverdlovsk Region, Nizhny Tagil, Vostochnoye Shosse, 28.
This museum has collected more than a thousand of various exhibits. It is not only the combat vehicles that are presented here, various details and mechanisms, and even drawings and sketches of pieces of equipment, are exhibited at the Museum of Nizhny Tagil Armored Vehicles - but once this was completely classified information.
The museum also has its own art gallery, on its walls are paintings depicting how the Uralvagonzavod worked during the Great Patriotic War.
Tanks also have a fate
The history of many cars that hit the Museum of Armored Vehicles in Nizhny Tagil is very interesting.
One of the exhibits, a tank of the OT-34 model, was raised from the bottom of a lake near Moscow, where it, flooded, has been lying since 1942. After so many years (in 1999), it was repaired and put back on the tracks. Now he not only adorns the museum’s collection, gathering dust in one of the exhibition hangars, the restored tank now leads parades of military equipment that are held in Nizhny Tagil.
Museum of Armored Arms and Technology in Kubinka
But not only Nizhny Tagil is famous for such a formidable museum. In Kubinka - a small town near Moscow - is one of the largest museums in the world that is dedicated to military equipment.
The Central Museum of Armored Vehicles in Kubinka is not only very large, but also quite old. It was opened as early as 1938, however, then excursions were not conducted there - units of military equipment, both Russian and foreign, were exhibited there to familiarize and work with them, research designers and people serving in the army. And it was difficult to call a collection of military equipment then a museum - cars covered with tarpaulin stood on the street. The construction of the building was considered only in the seventies of the twentieth century.
In 1972, already in a special room, the museum was opened for visiting representatives of the Ministry of Defense, research organizations and design bureaus.
For everyone, the complex became available only in 1996. At the moment, it covers an area of more than ten hectares; not only hangars with equipment, but also a scientific library, archive, and conference hall are located on the territory of the museum.
Address: Moscow region, Odintsovo, city of Kubinka-1.
Schedule
Everyone can visit the Central Museum of Armored Equipment from Tuesday to Friday from ten in the morning until five in the evening, on Saturday and Sunday the cultural and historical complex is open an hour longer - until six in the evening.
However, you should not come to the museum later than an hour before closing, because at that time ticket offices stop working, and without tickets it will be impossible to see the tour.
Monday at the museum is a day off.
Ticket prices
An entrance ticket to the Central Museum of Armored Vehicles in Kubinka can be purchased for 400 rubles. This price includes not only a visit to museum exhibits, but also a visit to the Patriot Park.
Students, schoolchildren, pensioners, children under 17 years of age (see the full list of preferential categories of visitors on the museum’s official website) receive a fifty percent discount on tickets.
Children under six years of age, disabled children, veterans and participants of the Great Patriotic War, and some other groups of people will be able to enter the museum for free.
For excursion service you will have to pay separately.
Where else to look at the tanks?
Another place where you can get acquainted with the history, structure and operation of heavy military vehicles is the Museum of armored vehicles in Prokhorovka.
Address: Russia, town of Prokhorovka, Parkovaya St., 50.
Here visitors get into the real world of tanks. The museum exhibits copies of the oldest military vehicles, whose age exceeds several centuries. In another room, interactive showcases are presented, which demonstrate the internal structure and functionality of the tanks. There are both 20th century assembly machines and completely new, modern models that are now in service with our country.
The interior of the museum is well thought out and fully consistent with the theme of the exhibitions. The location of the museum was also not chosen by chance - it was here, in Prokhorovka, that the tank battle (the year 1943), the largest in Russia, and possibly in world history, took place.
The museum of armored vehicles is part of a whole historical and military complex: the Prokhorovskoye Pole Museum-Reserve, on the vast territory of which, in addition to this museum, there are 2 more museums, mass graves, a library and even a hotel. And to inspect the entire collection, one day will not be enough.