The Central Naval Museum in St. Petersburg is one of the largest marine museums in the world and one of the first museums in the Northern Capital.
Collections of the Naval Museum in St. Petersburg
Ship fund
The ship fund has about two thousand unique models of ships, and one of the most valuable museum exhibits is the famous boat of Peter the Great, often called the Grandfather of the Russian Fleet. The submarine of the designer Stepan Karlovic Dzhevetsky in 1881, models of ships on a scale of 1:12 and unique models of ships of unrealized projects also have a great interest. Thus, for example, here you can see the model of a squadron battleship designed by Erast Guliaev, in which the ship's protection from underwater explosions was elaborated in details for the first time in the world.
The collection of ships is one of the richest in the world and doesn’t give in the collection of the British National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Weapons Fund
The collection of weapons is a weapon of different times and countries.Among the valuable exhibits are old Russian cannons cast from copper by Semen Chugunkin in 1618 and master Joseph Balashevich in Glukhov in 1692, among the exhibits is also a personal weapon of the imperial family.
You can see the sword of the Russian naval commander Pavel Nakhimov and the golden saber of Admiral Stepan Makarov, the personal weapons of Admiral Nelson and Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, as well as Admiral of the USSR Fleet Nikolai Kuznetsov and Sergei Gorshkov.
Izo fund
The collection includes more than 59,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures by such famous masters as Ivan Aivazovsky and Peter Klodt, Alexander Bryullov and Mark Antakolsky, Mikhail Mikeshin and other Russian and foreign artists and sculptors.
Znamenny Fund
Besides the collection of medals, flags and banners, you will see the form of sailors of the XVII - XVIII centuries, when the Russian fleet was just emerging with modern uniforms. There the collection of faleristics is represented - military insignia and numismatics - rare coins and banknotes
Documentary fund
Here the original documents with autographs of Russian emperors, including Peter the Great, as well as the Naval Charter of 1724 and Peter's letters of commendation, documents from the period of the Great Patriotic War and unique materials with the records of Russian naval commanders are kept.
The documents of the fund will tell us about the life and work of Russian sailors in the 18th and 20th centuries.
Photographic Negative Fund
The exposition of this fund includes photographs and photo albums, postcards and negatives from the middle of the 19th century to our days for visitors.
Drawing fund
The drawing fund consists of about 20,000 drawings of ships and ships, books on the history of shipbuilding, documents with ship designs, drawings of ships with autographs of Peter the Great and other prominent figures of the state and navy.
Special Fund
The Special Fund is a collection of awards, jewelry and souvenirs from officers' messrooms made of precious metals and stones which was made by such famous masters as Carl Faberge and Pavel Ovchinnikov, Alexander Lubavin and other talented jewelers.In the collection there are orders, medals and memorable signs.
The funds of CVMM have been replenished for three centuries and now number about 800 thousand items.
Russian travelers Ivan Fedorovich Krusenstern and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel and many others after each return replenished ethnographic, zoological and geological collections brought by the exhibits.
There is a rich library, many of its materials were obtained from the library of the Admiralty College.
History of the creation of the Naval Museum in St. Petersburg
In 1709, at the Admiralty, Peter the Great founded the Model Camera, a repository of shipbuilding models and blueprints, in which drawings and models of all built ships were compulsorily transferred.
In 1805, the Maritime Museum was established and was located in the building of the Main Admiralty, where the exhibits of the Model Camera were transferred.
Since 1908 the museum began to bear the name of its founder Peter the Great, and in 1924 it received its current name - the Central Naval Museum. In 1939 - 1940 the museum moved to the building of the former Stock Exchange on Vasilievsky Island, built according to the project of the famous architect Tom de Tomon.
The exposition was opened in February 1941, but already at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War most of the exhibits were evacuated to Ulyanovsk. At the end of the war the collection was returned from evacuation and on July 28, 1946 the museum again met its visitors.
In 2006, it became known about the need to move the CMC to a new location and originally planned to place it in a new building at the mouth of the Smolenka River on the Vasilievsky Island, but later it was decided to reconstruct the Kryukov Barracks and move the museum to this building on Truda Square.
The relocation began in 2011, and the opening of the CMVM in the new building was postponed six times and finally, on July 28, 2013, on the Day of the Navy, the museum opened its doors to visitors.
Branches of the Naval Museum
The CMV has four branches:
- Cruiser Aurora
- Kronstadt fortress in the building of the Naval Cathedral of Kronstadt
- Submarine D-2 Narodovolets
- The Museum "The Road of Life", opened in 1972 in Osinovets village
- Vsevolozhsk District
- Leningrad
The exhibits demonstrate the courage and steadfastness of the defenders of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War.
- Basic excursions
- Russia is a sea power
- Fleet in the war years
- The postwar fleet
- Introduction to the fleet
- Sightseeing tour
History of the Russian Navy
The Central Naval Museum of St. Petersburg is one of the most significant in the Northern capital, by visiting it you will get acquainted with the history of the Russian fleet and see many interesting and valuable exhibits connected with historical events in the life of Russia.
