Historical museums in Moscow - what to visit? A Review of Historical Museums in Moscow

A truly priceless heritage is stored by historical museums in Moscow. To study all expositions, there will not be enough and a lifetime. But with some of them we strongly recommend getting to know each other. We offer a short tour of the most famous and noteworthy museums of the capital.

State Historical Museum in Moscow

Most Russians are well aware 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 the decree of Alexander II. In 1974, the city council allocated a plot of land for construction on Red Square, where it was laid in April of the same year with the participation of the emperor. The building in the pseudo-Russian style with the elements of the tower was designed by the architect Shevrud and engineer Semenov. It blended seamlessly into the existing ensemble, consisting of the Moscow Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. The halls of the Historical Museum in Moscow were designed by famous artists: Vasnetsov, Korovin, Aivazovsky, Repin. Construction continued until 1881, and in May 1883 the museum met the first tourists.

The exposition of the museum, consisting of almost 5 million items and 14 million documents, reflects all stages of Russia's development - from ancient times to the beginning of the twentieth century. The first collection of the museum were exhibits of the Crimean War. In the Soviet era, some decorative elements were destroyed, and the paintings are whitewashed. In the late 80s of the last century a large-scale restoration began to restore the historical appearance, which was restored by the end of 2003. In 2006, work on a permanent exposition was completed, which is placed in chronological order and currently occupies 39 rooms on two floors. For each era, its own hall is assigned, and in the first one there are exhibits relating to the primitive communal system.

A lot of interesting and unique stores the Historical Museum in Moscow. Exhibits They gathered for almost a century and a half. Here are just a few of them:

• Original mammoth tusks, found on the banks of the Yenisei by a merchant from Irkutsk Gromov in the end of the XIX century and donated to them by the museum.

• Hollowed out with a stone ax from a whole oak canoe length of 7.5 meters. Was found on the Don shore near Voronezh by local residents in 1954.

• A copy of the burial in the Sungir parking lot 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 on the territory where the ancient Greek state of the Bosporan kingdom, which occupied the Kerch and Taman peninsula, used to be.

• Burial masks of Tashtyks, allowing to imagine what was the appearance of people who inhabited southern Siberia in the II century BC. E. - V century BC. E.

• Vessels made from the horns for drinking are ritons.

• "The Lay of Igor's Host" is the first edition, dated 1800.

• Mummified remains of a Russian 25-year-old woman from the times of the Egyptian pyramids.

• The first birch bark of the 14th century, found under Novgorod in 1951. This is a report on the collection of dues, compiled by the manager of the boyar patrimony.

Museums of the Moscow Kremlin

In the very center of our capital, on the territory of the Kremlin, there are unique museums. They are united by a common name - the Moscow Kremlin Museums. In total there are six of them: the Armory Chamber, the Church of the Deposition, the Museum of Applied Art and Life of the 17th Century, the Assumption, the Archangel and the Annunciation Cathedrals.

Armouries

Historical museums in Moscow include a well-known all over the world treasury, named after the oldest Kremlin treasury. The museum occupies a building, designed by the architect K. Ton in 1891. The collection of the Armory Chamber consists of the treasures of the royal treasury and the patriarchal vestry, made by Kremlin masters, as well as donated by embassies of other states.

It stores the ceremonial royal clothes, coronation dress, state regalia, clothes of the hierarchs of the Russian church, products of arms masters, a collection of gold and silver products made by Russian masters, silver from Europe, carriages, ceremonial horse dress. All exhibits of the Armory Chamber have the highest artistic and historical and cultural value. The museum exhibited about four hundred thousand items of decorative and applied art of the Russian state, countries of the East and Europe, from the IV century to 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 of the kingdom, the ordination of the heads of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the burial of the patriarchs and metropolitans were held.

The gaze of the visitors is a majestic 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, the ensemble of monumental painting, the prayer place of Ivan VI, the historic necropolis.

Blagoveshchensky cathedral

Historical museums in Moscow are found in many ancient cathedrals. Blagoveshchensky is 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 home church of the great Russian princes and kings. During his history he underwent many changes. Ancient six-tier iconostasis, consisting of almost a hundred icons, and an ensemble of monumental painting are of great value. According to the researchers, some icons of the festive series belong to the brush of the great Andrei Rublev, and the icons of the Deesis series were written by Theophanes the Greek.

Cathedral of the Archangel

The cathedral, which has survived to our days, 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 Deposition

The house temple of patriarchs and metropolitans was built in the XV 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, painted by Nazar Istomin, is an artistic value. The painting on the walls was made according to the medieval canons in the middle of the XVII century. In the temple there are exhibitions of Russian wooden sculpture. Similar monuments, which today are few, were collected in various churches of Russia.

Museum of Applied Art and Life of the XVII Century

It is located in the Patriarch's Chambers, the former palace of Russian patriarchs, which was built for Nikon. This young museum was created in 1962, and the exposition was based on the exhibits of the Armory Chamber. The museum, which is located in the building of the same era, which tells about, recreated the historic interiors. In the first room are the personal belongings of Patriarch Nikon and other heads of the church. Historical and artistic value is represented by sauces, sticks, hoods.

The museum exhibits antique furniture, caskets, chests, watches, drafts, silver chess. Most of the exhibits are valuable dishes: cups, gold and silver dishes, chocolates, peppercorns, saltcellars.

Widely presented men's and women's jewelry: buckles, buttons, cuff links, earrings, rings, rings. Among the exhibits are hats, household and church clothes from expensive fabrics.

There are handwritten books decorated with miniatures, multi-colored screensavers, and endings. Among them there is a unique specimen made for Tsarevich Aleksei, - the letter of Karion Istomin.

A place is also reserved for royal amusements. These are hunting items: traps, rattles with a notch of gold, rifles with ivory ornaments and mother-of-pearl, graceful powder flasks, bows with arrows of cypress, birch, cedar,

Paleontological Museum

Educational and educational center, which has no similar in the world, is part of the same-named institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and is considered one of the world's largest natural historical museums.

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 the Great Kaluga, now Leninsky Prospekt. A separate building was needed. Its construction began only in 1972 in a beautiful place in the south-west of the capital. Almost twenty years have gone to create a unique museum complex. In 1987, a new The Dinosaur Museum opened the doors for visitors for the first time.

The main theme of the exposition is the evolution of the organic world of the planet. The area is about 5000 square meters. There are about 5000 exhibits in six halls. Each room is dedicated to a certain stage in the development of the organic world of the Earth.

• Opening hall. The excursion 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 there are portraits of scientists of different times who studied the development of the world of organic matter. Among them are such well-known personalities as Darwin and Lomonosov. The author of portraits made of forged copper is the artist A. Chernov.

• The second room is devoted to the Precambrian period and the Early Paleozoic. Here you can find out about the first living organisms that inhabited the Earth: plants and invertebrates. In addition, the hall is decorated with artistic and monumental works depicting representatives of the plant and animal life of the time: stone carvings, ceramic panels, sculptural images from ceramics.

• In the third hall, visitors will get acquainted with the geological past of the Moscow region and nearby territories that have been under water for millions of years. Here, the remains of organisms inhabiting the territory at different times are demonstrated: algae, invertebrates, fish.

• Exhibits of the fourth hall belong to the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic. Special attention here deserves the North-Dvinskaya gallery with a group of skeletons of reptiles and huge dinosaurs, which was gathered by Professor Amalitsky. On the walls of the hall you can see artistic images of plants and animals in the technique of carving wood and ceramic reliefs with paintings. Decorate the hall made of forged copper phylogenetic tree of vertebrates and suspended in the center of a chandelier with images of ancient vertebrates.

• The fifth hall will acquaint visitors with the organic world of the second half of the Mesozoic and the variety of the lizards of this time. Here is a collection of birds and dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. One of the largest exhibits - diplodok, 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 Romanovs' house.

• 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 giant rhinoceros-indricotheria, mastodon-gomphoterie, large-deer, cave bears.

Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow

Its history began in 1919, when the permanent exhibition "The Life of the Red Army and the Navy" was established.

The history of the Armed Forces of our country was reflected in 15,000 exhibits, which are exhibited in 24 halls, occupying an area of 5000 square meters. Materials are placed in chronological order: the history of the Russian army until 1917, the years of the Civil War, the Red Army guarding the Soviet Union, the years of the Great Patriotic War, the post-war years of the Soviet Armed Forces. Presented documents, awards, photographs, weapons and military equipment, a collection of banners, personal belongings of military commanders, officers and soldiers.

Other historical museums in Moscow

The list of historical museums can be continued. Among them is the Museum of Contemporary 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 timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the Moscow Battle.

Another military-historical museum in Moscow - the Central Museum of the Second World War. The memorial complex was opened on Poklonnaya Hill in 1995 to the 50th anniversary of the Victory.

Moscow's historical museums can not be imagined without the Moscow Museum, which was founded in 1896 by the City Duma. Then it was called the Museum of Moscow Municipal Economy, and the first place of its location was the Krestovskiy water tower. The Museum of Moscow unites several departments: archeology, manor culture, history Lefortovo, English farmstead.

The Moscow Archeology Museum was opened as a branch of the Moscow Museum for the 850th anniversary of the capital in 1997. For him, an underground pavilion was built at a depth of 7 meters at the site of archaeological works during the reconstruction of Manezhnaya square in the 90s of the last century.

The English metochion also belongs to the Museum of the History of Moscow and is one of the oldest buildings in the capital. Among the expositions: "Moscow is medieval through the eyes of foreigners", "History of Anglo-Russian relations of the XV-XII centuries", "History of the Chambers of the English Court". The exhibition "Visiting Elizabeth II in 1994 with the Chambers of the Old English Court in Moscow" is always open in the museum.