A truly invaluable heritage is preserved by historical museums in Moscow. A lifetime is not enough to study all the expositions. But with some of them we strongly recommend getting to know each other better. We offer a short tour of the most famous and noteworthy museums in the capital.
State Historical Museum in Moscow
Most Russians have a good idea of ​​a three-story red brick building with a white roof, located on Red Square.
The largest State Historical Museum in Russia was founded in February 1872 by decree of Alexander II. In 1974, the city council allocated a plot of land on Red Square for construction, where it was laid in April of that year with the participation of the emperor. The building in the
pseudo-Russian style with elements of a tower was designed by architect Chevrud and engineer Semenov. It organically fit into the existing ensemble, consisting of the Moscow Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. The halls of the Historical Museum in Moscow were decorated by famous artists: Vasnetsov, Korovin, Aivazovsky, Repin. Construction continued until 1881, and in May 1883 the museum met the first sightseers.
The museum’s exposition, consisting of almost 5 million items and 14 million documents, reflects all stages of the development of Russia - from ancient times to the beginning of the twentieth century. The first collection of the museum was the exhibits of the Crimean War. In Soviet times, some decorative elements were destroyed, and the paintings were whitened. In the late 80s of the last century, a large-scale restoration began with the aim of restoring the historical appearance, which was restored by the end of 2003. In 2006, work was completed on a permanent exhibition, which is placed in chronological order and currently occupies 39 rooms on two floors. Each era has its own hall, and in the first of them there are exhibits related to the primitive communal system.
A lot of interesting and unique is kept by the Historical Museum in Moscow. Exhibits
gathered almost a century and a half. Here are just a few of them:
The original mammoth tusks found on the banks of the Yenisei by the merchant from Irkutsk Gromov at the end of the 19th century and donated by him to the museum.
Hollowed out with a stone ax from a whole oak shuttle 7.5 meters long. It was discovered on the Don coast near Voronezh by local residents in 1954.
A copy of the burial in the parking lot of Sungir near Vladimir, whose age is more than 25 thousand years.
Taman sarcophagus IV century BC. It was found at the beginning of the last century in the territory where the ancient Greek state of the Bosporus kingdom, which occupied the Kerch and Taman Peninsula, was located.
Funeral masks of the Tashtyks, allowing us to imagine what was the appearance of the people who inhabited southern Siberia in the II century BC. e. - V century BC e.
Drinking vessels made from the horns of the tour are rhytons.
“The Word of Igor’s Regiment” is the first edition dating from 1800.
Mummified remains of a Russian 25-year-old woman from the time of the Egyptian pyramids.
- The first birch bark certificate of the XIV century, found near Novgorod in 1951. This is a report on the collection of the dues, compiled by the manager of the boyar patrimony.
Moscow Kremlin Museums
In the very center of our capital, on the territory of the Kremlin, unique museums are located. They are united by a common name - Moscow Kremlin Museums. There are six of them: the Armory, the Church of the Deposition of the Robe, the Museum of Applied Arts and Life of the 17th century, the Assumption, Arkhangelsk and Annunciation Cathedrals.
Armouries
Historical museums in Moscow include the world-famous treasury, named after the oldest Kremlin treasury. The museum occupies a building designed by architect C. Ton in 1891. The Armory collection consists of the treasures of the royal treasury and the patriarchal sacristy, made by Kremlin masters, as well as donated by the embassies of other states.
It contains ceremonial royal clothing, coronation gowns, state regalia, clothes of hierarchs of the Russian church, products of weapons craftsmen, a collection of gold and silver products made by Russian craftsmen, silver art from Europe, carriages, horse dress. All exhibits of the Armory have the highest artistic and historical-cultural value. The museum exhibited about four hundred thousand pieces of decorative art of the Russian state, countries of the East and Europe, starting from the IV century and ending with the beginning of XX.
Museums in Moscow today are equipped with the latest technology: visitors have the opportunity to use the electronic guide to the Armory.
Assumption Cathedral
For centuries, it is the main temple in Russia. Here the coronations of emperors, the wedding to the kingdom, the deliveries of the heads of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the burial of patriarchs and metropolitans were held.
Visitors can see the magnificent five-tier iconostasis with a height of more than 16 meters. Here is the largest collection of the most valuable and revered icons in the country, an ensemble of
monumental painting, a prayer place of Ivan VI, a historical necropolis.
Blagoveshchensky cathedral
Historical museums in Moscow are located in many ancient cathedrals. Blagoveshchensk - one of the oldest monuments of the Moscow Kremlin, built according to the traditions of Moscow and Pskov architecture in the 15th century as a house church of the great Russian princes and tsars. Throughout its history, it has undergone many changes. The ancient six-tier iconostasis, consisting of almost a hundred icons, and the ensemble of monumental painting are of great value. According to researchers, some of the icons of the festive row belong to the brush of the great Andrei Rublev, and the icons of the deesis row are painted by Feofan Grek.
Cathedral of the Archangel
The cathedral, which has survived to this day, was built 500 years ago, but its history began presumably in 1247-1248. He became the first tomb of the great Russian princes. Two crayfish and 47 tombstones are in the necropolis. The walls and pillars of the Archangel Cathedral are decorated with portraits of the rulers of Moscow.
Church of the Relocation
The home church of the patriarchs and metropolitans was built in the 15th century in the traditions of early Moscow architecture with elements of Pskov architecture. A small church is located between the Faceted Chamber and the Assumption Cathedral. The iconostasis of the church, written by Nazarius Istomin, is an artistic value. The walls were painted according to medieval canons in the middle of the 17th century. The temple hosts exhibitions of Russian wooden sculpture. Similar monuments, which are few today, were collected in various churches in Russia.
Museum of Applied Art and Life of the 17th Century
It is located in the Patriarchal Chambers, the former palace of the Russian patriarchs, which was built for Nikon. This young museum was created in 1962, and the exposition included the exhibits of the Armory. The museum, which is located in a building of the same era that it talks about, recreated historical interiors. The first room presents the personal belongings of Patriarch Nikon and other church leaders. Historical and artistic value are saccos, staves, hoods.
The museum exhibits antique furniture, caskets, chests, watches, checkers, silver chess. Most of the exhibits are valuable dishes: cups, gold and silver dishes, cups, peppers, salt shakers.
Male and female jewelry are widely represented: buckles, buttons, cufflinks, earrings, rings, rings. Among the exhibits are hats, home and church clothes made of expensive fabrics.
Here are exhibited handwritten books, decorated with miniatures, colorful screensavers, endings. Among them there is a unique copy made for Tsarevich Alexei, the Primer of Karion Istomin.
Allocated space and royal fun. These are objects of hunting: traps, stalks with a notch of gold, shotguns with jewelry made of ivory and mother of pearl, graceful powder flasks, bows with arrows of cypress, birch, cedar,
Paleontological Museum
The educational center, which does not have its own counterparts in the world, is part of the RAS Institute of the same name and is considered one of the largest natural history museums in the world.
It was founded in Moscow in 1937. In 1954 it was closed due to the impossibility of placing all the exhibits on a too small area: all the halls occupied about 700 square meters. m allocated in the arena of Count Orlov on Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya, now Leninsky Prospekt. A separate building was required. Its construction began only in 1972 in a beautiful place in the south-west of the capital. It took almost twenty years to create a unique museum complex. In 1987, the new
The Dinosaur Museum first opened its doors to visitors.
The main theme of the exposition is the evolution of the organic world of the planet. The area is about 5000 square meters. m. Six halls feature about 5,000 exhibits. Each hall is dedicated to a certain stage in the development of the organic world of the Earth.
Introductory room. The tour begins with a story about paleontology, its sections and development. The main exhibit of the hall is the skeleton of a mammoth, found in Siberia in 1842. There are also ceramic panels reflecting the evolution of the life of the seas. On the second floor of the hall are exposed portraits of scientists from different times who studied the development of the world of organics. Among them are such famous personalities as Darwin and Lomonosov. The author of the portraits made of forged copper is the artist A. Chernov.
The second room is dedicated to the Precambrian period and the Early Paleozoic. Here you can learn about the first living organisms that inhabited the Earth: plants and invertebrates. In addition, the hall is decorated with monumental works depicting representatives of the flora and fauna of that time: stone carving, ceramic panels, sculptural images from ceramics.
In the third hall, visitors will get acquainted with the geological past of the Moscow Region and the surrounding territories, which have been under water for millions of years. The remains of organisms that inhabited the territory at different times: algae, invertebrates, fish, are demonstrated here.
The exhibits of the fourth hall belong to the Late Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic. Of particular interest here is the North Dvina Gallery with a group of skeletons of reptiles and huge dinofephals, which was assembled by Professor Amalitsky. On the walls of the hall you can see artistic images of plants and animals using the technique of woodcarving and ceramic reliefs with painting. The hall is decorated with a phylogenetic tree of vertebrates made of forged copper and suspended in the center of a chandelier with images of ancient vertebrates.
The fifth hall will introduce guests to the organic world of the second half of the Mesozoic and the variety of dinosaurs of this time. Here is a collection of birds and dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. One of the major exhibits is a diplodocus, a cast from the skeleton of which was donated in 1910 to Nicholas II by the American E. Carnegie in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.
The sixth hall is dedicated to the Cenozoic era, the history of the development of mammals. Representatives of flora and fauna are exhibited here. Of particular interest are the skeletons of the giant rhino-indricoteria, mastodon-homfoteria, large-horned deer, cave bears.
Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow
Its history began in 1919, when the permanent exhibition Life of the Red Army and Navy was established.
The history of the Armed Forces of our country is reflected in 15,000 exhibits, which are exhibited in 24 rooms, covering an area of ​​5000 square meters. m. Materials are placed in chronological order: the history of the Russian army until 1917, the years of the Civil War, the Red Army on guard of the Soviet Union, the years of World War II, the postwar years of the Soviet Armed Forces. Presented documents, awards, photographs, weapons and military equipment, a collection of banners, personal items of military leaders, officers and soldiers.
Other historical museums in Moscow
The list of historical museums can be continued. Among them is the Museum of Modern History, founded in 1917 and dedicated to Russian history from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.
The Museum of Defense of Moscow began its existence in 1981 with an exhibition that was dedicated to the fortieth anniversary of the Moscow Battle.
Another military historical museum in Moscow is the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War. The memorial complex was opened on Poklonnaya Hill in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the Victory.
Moscow historical museums cannot be imagined without the Museum of Moscow, which was founded in 1896 by the City Council. Then it was called the Museum of Moscow City Economy, and the first place of its location was Krestovsky water towers. The Moscow Museum unites several departments: archeology, estate culture, the history of Lefortovo, the English Compound.
The Museum of Archeology of Moscow opened as a branch of the Museum of Moscow for the 850th anniversary of the capital in 1997. An underground pavilion was built for him at a depth of 7 meters at the site of archaeological work during the reconstruction of Manezhnaya Square in the 90s of the last century.
The English Compound also belongs to the Museum of the History of Moscow and is one of the oldest buildings in the capital. Among the expositions: “Medieval Moscow through the eyes of foreigners”, “History of Anglo-Russian relations of the XV-XII centuries”, “History of the Chambers of the English court”. The museum is constantly open exhibition "Visiting Elizabeth II in 1994, the Chambers of the Old English Courtyard in Moscow."