The Kremlin Armoury,Officially called the "Armou/ory Chamber" but also known as the cannon yard, the "Armou/ory Palace", the "Moscow Armou/ory", the "Armou/ory Museum", and the "Moscow Armou/ory Museum" but different from the Kremlin Arsenal. (russian: Оружейная палата) is one of the oldest

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...

s of

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, located in the Moscow Kremlin, now a part of Moscow Kremlin Museums. Kremlin Armoury interior 03 by shakko

Persian Arms and Armours - Kremlin Armoury Museum Moscow

The Kremlin

Armoury An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostl ...

originated as the royal arsenal in 1508. Until the transfer of the court to St Petersburg, the Armoury was in charge of producing, purchasing and storing weapons, jewelry and various household articles of the tsars, and valuables stolen from occupied countries. The finest Muscovite gunsmiths (the Vyatkin brothers), jewelers (Gavrila Ovdokimov), and painters ( Simon Ushakov) used to work there. In 1640 and 1683, they opened the iconography and pictorial studios, where the lessons on painting and handicrafts could be given. In 1700, the Armoury was enriched with the treasures of the Golden and Silver chambers of the Russian tsars.

History

In 1711, Peter the Great had the majority of masters transferred to his new capital, St Petersburg. 15 years later, the Armoury was merged with the Fiscal Yard (the oldest depository of the royal treasures),

Stable A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...

s Treasury (in charge of storing harnesses and carriages) and the Master Chamber (in charge of sewing clothes and bedclothes for the tsars). After that, the Armoury was renamed into the Arms and Master Chamber.

Alexander I of Russia Alexander I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death. He was the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. The son o ...

nominated the Armoury as the first public museum in

in 1806, but the collections were not opened to the public until seven years later. Ten of the 44 surviving Fabergé imperial Easter eggs are displayed at the Armory Museum. After the Russian Revolution, the imperial family's palaces were ransacked and their treasures moved to the Kremlin Armoury on order of

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

Russian Diamond Fund

Beside the Armoury Chamber/Museum, the Kremlin Armoury is also currently home to the Russian Diamond Fund. It holds unique collections of the Russian, Western European and Eastern

applied arts The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Univers ...

spanning the period from the 5th to the 20th centuries.

Notes

References

External links

Kremlin Museums: The Armoury Chamber

The Armory Chamber – Travel Guide
{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Moscow Museums in Moscow

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

Military and war museums in Russia Moscow Kremlin Armories (military) Russian Revival architecture Jewellery museums Decorative arts museums in Russia Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Moscow