Thousands and thousands of visitors come to the Moscow Kremlin every day, who leave a lot of rave reviews in special books and on the Internet. The Armory of the Moscow Kremlin enjoys special attention, since it is not only a world-famous museum, but also an architecturally amazing building. There you can see the weapons and clothes that our sovereigns wore, a variety of silver and gold items from Oriental, European and Russian masters.
History
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the first mentions of the Armory were left in the annals. In 1547, there was a great fire that destroyed rare treasures. In the time of Ivan III, this precious collection was called the "Big Treasury" and was located in a large stone room - the Treasury House, standing between the Annunciation and the Archangel Cathedrals.
Peter the Great ordered the creation of a workshop where valuables were stored in due order. It was there that all the most curious and valuable things were transferred. In 1737, another fire occurred in which many important exhibits were destroyed, including captured weapons from the Battle of Poltava. However, the royal treasury in the Armory Chamber survived. Reviews of contemporaries suggest that all values were subsequently transferred to the Terem Palace, and the Treasury was dismantled.
The building we know
In 1810, Alexander the First built a separate building - without heating, to avoid fires in the future. Two years later, all the valuables had to be evacuated, as the enemy approached Moscow, and the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin could go to the Napoleonic troops. But they did not receive such joy. All especially valuable things were jealously guarded in Nizhny Novgorod.
The real building, familiar to our contemporaries, was built by the architect Konstantin Ton in 1851, where the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin is currently located. Reviews about visiting it can be read everywhere: it is one of the most famous and most interesting museums in Russia.
Even initially there were not only weapons stored there. And the name came about due to the fact that in the old days mainly gunsmiths worked there. These are the best of gold and silver craftsmen. Much later, an icon-painting workshop was opened, where celebrities also worked - Bezmin, Zubov, Ushakov.
Collection of values
Over the years, the reviews of the Kremlin Armory were the most enthusiastic. Visitors talked about new and new replenishment of the museum with valuable finds, trophies, expensive gifts. It was here that values were preserved from churches closed during the USSR. After visiting the armory with a guided tour in reviews, ordinary people wrote about their impressions of viewing the presented exhibits. This is the clothing of the kings and the highest representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, silver and gold items that retained the talent and exceptional skills of the masters.
Everyone admires, for example, the Monomakh hat, which is decorated with sables and large precious stones. It was she, and not the crown, who crowned princes in Russia in the kingdom before the arrival of Peter the Great. Many amazing things can be seen in Moscow at the Armory.
In the reviews, visitors write about the famous double throne, where the young brothers - Peter the Great and Ivan the Fifth - were crowned. The throne even includes a small room with a separate door, from where the prompter's words that they were supposed to speak came to the reigning youths. Such a legend exists. Of particular interest is the throne of Ivan the Terrible: various images can be seen on ivory plates.
Weapon
According to reviews, a tour of the armory is very interesting, since the collections there are the most diverse and all wonderful. Expositions representing unique firearm, cold and protective Russian weapons enjoy special attention. And this is seriously interested not only in adult men, but also adolescents, and even women. You can visit the Cossack Armory. According to reviews, entertaining exhibits are presented there, old restored sabers, broadswords, drafts, knives and other items that are now popular even among young people, as well as products by modern masters, are sold.
The museum’s exposition preserved the rarest examples of twelfth-century weapons, which are practically unparalleled in any of the other collections. Tourists in their reviews of visiting the Armory often admire weapons made in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, almost nowhere else can be seen.
But the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are represented here by the works of the best sovereign masters. These are the wonderful fighting properties of the presented specimens, and the excellent art of decoration. It was precisely this weapon that the sovereigns wore as part of the so-called "Big Dress" when they participated in the most solemn ceremonies. Guest reviews of the Armory often mention this fact.
Eighteenth century weapons
Almost all Russian weapons stored in the Armory of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - both ceremonial and military - were manufactured at the plants of Zlatoust, Olonets, Sestroretsk, Tula. The hunting weapons of the Russian sovereigns are especially richly decorated. This also applies to their ceremonial decoration. Both the ceremonial and hunting weapons were made and decorated in St. Petersburg, in the Rifle court. Here, at the end of the exposition, an exceptionally interesting collection of orders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
A very rich collection in the Armory of products for the armament and protection of knights of Western Europe, as well as the decoration of knightly horses. Visitors of a knight on a horse dressed in armor take a long time to examine: a knight looks into a narrow crevice for the eyes, while a horse has only eyes and legs open. Running through all the expositions with a cursory glance is not so simple: more than four thousand unique exhibits from Europe, the East, as well as domestic ones. It is impossible to even establish their value, since this treasury is the memory of our country.
Halls one through five
The first two halls represent domestic silver and gold products, the first from the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, and the second - before the twentieth. The whole exposition is excellent: the decorative and applied art of ancient Byzantium, and the craftsmanship of craftsmen of masters of pre-Mongol Rus, and the art of Kiev, Suzdal, Chernigov, Novgorod, Ryazan, many cities that flourished already at a time when Moscow was not yet planned.
In the third and fourth halls - weapons for parades, the eastern and European from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries - in the third, and Russian weapons of all times are completely in the fourth. In the fifth hall you can admire silverware from Western Europe from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries.
Halls six through nine
The sixth hall is more interesting to the ladies - these ancient precious fabrics will delight them: how was it possible to make this in the fourteenth century? Even in the eighteenth it is hard to imagine: the work was completely manual and very difficult! The secular costume from the sixteenth to the twentieth century is another reason for the long stop of women in this room.
In the seventh hall everything is collected that was necessary for ceremonial ceremonies, as well as state regalia. In the eighth it will be interesting to men: here are objects of eight hundred years ago, intended for horse decoration. Exceptionally beautiful. And in the ninth hall - a special delight: crews of different centuries are exhibited here, in which the imperial family went to balls.
For visitors
In the museum, any visitor is given a free audio guide, which allows you to get acquainted with the floor plan and get complete information about the exhibits located here. The only drawback: the audio lecture is designed for one and a half hours, and during this time it is simply impossible to examine each exhibit carefully, there is not enough time. The last halls have to inspect almost running.
You can also visit the Armory with a ticket purchased online. At the box office, the sale starts no earlier than 45 minutes before the start of the session, and there are only four sessions: at 10.00, then at 12.00 and two after lunch - at 14.30 and at 16.30. Many people want to visit the Armory, and therefore the number of tickets is almost always limited.
When to plan a visit
The most convenient time is on weekdays and in the afternoon, fewer lines. It is almost impossible to get into the Armory on Saturday, because at Cathedral Square at noon there is always an extremely interesting sight, and people really want to see this ceremony. Indeed, everyone wants to see the divorce of horse and foot guards of the Presidential Regiment, the queues take several hours. On holidays and holidays it is almost impossible to get into the Kremlin, there are a lot of people in line, so any session in the Armory will be difficult to access.
An adult ticket at the box office costs 700 rubles, a discount ticket - 200. There is also a family ticket, also for 200 rubles. Beneficiaries are pensioners, students and schoolchildren. Family tickets can be purchased by parents of children under sixteen years of age (no more than two children), for each member of the family you need a ticket for two hundred rubles. People with disabilities of the first and second groups, large families, cadets, war veterans, military personnel, orphans, museum workers, worshipers, preschoolers pass free of charge.
Before viewing the exposure
Visitors express admiration for the architecture of the complex of buildings in almost all of their reviews of the Armory. Address - Moscow Kremlin, Palace Square. Here, on Borovitsky Hill, there was once a kolyzhazhny yard, and then a building was built on this place (completion of work in 1851), specialized in a museum.
Both architecture and scale are very close to the Kremlin Palace: on two floors with a socle of variable height, with double-glazed windows and decorative decoration on the facade. The main decoration is white marble columns with rich floral ornaments.
Inside, visitors do not immediately look at the exhibits, since Gothic interiors require attention at least for a while: vaulted ceilings, high ceilings, columns with lancet orders, openwork lattices with eagles. All this is deeply interconnected with the theme of the museum, and therefore makes every little thing even more interesting.
Byzantine exhibits
Ancient Russia and Byzantium have long been tied in the strongest possible way, and religion, and art. The Armory has a small collection of exhibits of extraordinary value - Byzantine art from the fifth to the fifteenth century. About four hundred years, for example, a silver jug is dated, which depicts all nine muses.
Ancient Greek art for a long time left its artistic traditions in Byzantium. This can be observed in other exhibits - antique proportions in the image of human figures, the majesty and solemnity of each image, even their sublime detachment. The greatest achievement of the masters of Byzantium - cloisonne enamels, the most complicated technique in which they had no equal.
In the Armory there are quite a few products of this series: Crucifixion (ninth century), Descent into Hell (twelfth century), pectoral icons - exceptionally high mastery of the work. No less beautiful are Byzantine cameos on semiprecious stones (jasper, lapis lazuli), which depict the Savior the Almighty and the Russian patriarchs (multi-figure compositions).
Russian art
In the Armory, masterpieces of silver and gold work of the masters of Moscow and Veliky Novgorod of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are richly represented. Here only a high professional can distinguish provincial art from the capital.
But there are exhibits much earlier that were performed by the masters in the fourth and fifth centuries, they are no less interesting to history buffs, although they differ greatly in the technique of performance. Exhibited works of art come from Serbia, Georgia and many other countries, including real relics. For example, the patrimonial shrine of the great princes of Moscow of the twelfth century is a stavrotek for an icon in which there is a piece of the cross from Calvary.
Afterword
It is completely impossible to describe the beauty of the exhibits of the Armory in words, and even the most modern means of photography cannot quite cope with this. You won’t get a complete picture of the exhibition until you have the opportunity to see everything with your own eyes.
These are samples of the highest craftsmanship, filled with the smallest details that should not be overlooked. The Armory is not just a museum of applied art, it is a truly imperial collection of relics and rarities, a symbol of the material foundation of statehood, the continuity of traditions, and the history of our great ancestors.