Thousands and thousands of visitors visit the Moscow Kremlin every day, leaving many enthusiastic reviews both in special books and on the Internet. The Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin enjoys special attention, as it is not only a world-famous museum, but also an architecturally amazing building. There you can see weapons and clothes worn by our sovereigns, a variety of items made of silver and gold from Eastern, European and Russian masters.
History
Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the first mention of the Armory was left in the annals. In 1547 there was a great fire that destroyed rare treasures. During 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 Cathedral of the Annunciation and the Archangel.
Peter the Great ordered the creation of a workshop where valuables were kept in the proper order. It was there that they were transferredall the most curious and valuable things. In 1737, another fire broke out, during which many important exhibits were destroyed, including captured weapons from the Battle of Poltava. However, the royal treasury in the Armory survived. Reviews of contemporaries indicate that all the valuables were subsequently transferred to the Terem Palace, and the Treasury House 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 valuables had to be evacuated, since the enemy approached Moscow, and the Armory of the Moscow Kremlin could go to the Napoleonic troops. But they did not receive such joy. All especially valuable items were zealously guarded in Nizhny Novgorod.
The real building, familiar to our contemporaries, was built by the architect Konstantin Ton in 1851, and it is there that the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin is currently located. Reviews of visiting it can be read everywhere: this is one of the most famous and most interesting museums in Russia.
Even initially, there were more than just weapons stored there. And the name was formed due to the fact that in the old days mainly gunsmiths worked there. These are the best of the goldsmiths and silversmiths. Much later, an icon-painting workshop was opened, where celebrities such as Bezmin, Zubov, Ushakov also worked.
Collection of valuables
For many years of existence, reviews of the Kremlin Armorywere the most enthusiastic. Visitors talked about new additions to the museum with valuable finds, military trophies, expensive gifts. It was here that valuables from churches closed during the USSR were preserved. After visiting the armory with a tour in the reviews, ordinary people wrote about their impressions of viewing the presented exhibits. These are the clothes of kings and the highest representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, items made of silver and gold, which retained the talent and exceptional skills of the craftsmen.
Everyone admires, for example, Monomakh's hat, which is decorated with sables and large precious stones. It was with her, and not with a crown, that princes in Russia were crowned to the kingdom before the arrival of Peter the Great. Many amazing things can be seen in Moscow in 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 words of the prompter that they were supposed to speak reached the reigning youths. There is such a legend. Of particular interest is the throne of Ivan the Terrible: various images can be seen on ivory plates.
Weapons
According to reviews, the tour of the armory is very interesting, because the collections there are very diverse and all are wonderful. Special attention is paid to expositions representing unique firearms, cold steel and protective Russian weapons. And not only adult men are seriously interested in this, but also teenagers, and even women. You can also visit the Cossack armory. According to reviews, there areentertaining exhibits, antique restored sabers, broadswords, checkers, knives and other items that have become popular even among young people, as well as products of modern masters.
The exposition of the museum contains the rarest examples of weapons of the twelfth century, which practically have no analogues 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. This is both the remarkable combat properties of the specimens presented, and the excellent art of decoration. It was this weapon that sovereigns wore as part of the so-called "Big Outfit" when they participated in the most solemn ceremonies. Reviews of visitors to the Armory often mention this fact.
Eighteenth century weapons
Almost all Russian weapons of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries stored in the Armory - both ceremonial and combat - were made at the factories of Zlatoust, Olonets, Sestroretsk, Tula. The hunting weapons of the Russian sovereigns are especially richly decorated. This also applies to their ceremonial decoration. Both ceremonial and hunting weapons were produced and decorated in St. Petersburg, at the Rifle Yard. Here, at the end of the exposition, is an exceptionally interesting collection of orders from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Verya rich collection in the Armory of items for arming and protecting the knights of Western Europe, as well as the decoration of knightly horses. For a long time, the visitors of the knight on a horse, clad in armor, look at the knight: the knight looks through a narrow slit for the eyes, and the horse has only eyes and legs open. It is not so easy to run through all the expositions even with a cursory glance: more than four thousand of the most unique exhibits from European countries, from 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 items, the first from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, and the second until the beginning of the twentieth. The entire exposition is excellent: both the decorative and applied art of ancient Byzantium, and the craftsmanship of the craftsmen of pre-Mongolian Russia, and the art of Kyiv, Suzdal, Chernigov, Novgorod, Ryazan, and many cities that flourished already at the time when Moscow was not supposed to.
In the third and fourth halls - weapons for parades, Eastern and European from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century - in the third, and Russian weapons of all times in the fourth. In the fifth hall you can admire silverware from Western Europe from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century.
Halls six through nine
Sixth room is more interesting for ladies - these ancient precious fabrics will delight them: how was it possible to make such a thing in the fourteenth century? Even in the eighteenth it is hard to imagine: the work was completely manual and very complex! Secularcostume from the sixteenth to the twentieth century is another reason for the long stoppage of women in this hall.
The seventh hall contains everything that was needed for the ceremonial ceremonies, as well as state regalia. In the eighth, it will be interesting for men: here are eight-hundred-year-old objects intended for horse attire. Exceptionally beautiful. And in the ninth hall - a special delight: carriages of different centuries are exhibited here, in which the nobility and the imperial family went to balls.
For visitors
At the museum, any visitor is given a free audio guide, which allows you to get acquainted with the plan of the building and get complete information about the exhibits located here. The only drawback: the audio lecture is designed for an hour and a half, and during this time it is simply impossible to examine each exhibit carefully, there is not enough time. The last halls have to be examined almost at a run.
You can also visit the Armory with a ticket bought online. At the box office, sales begin 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 in the afternoon - 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 schedule a visit
The most convenient time is on weekdays and in the afternoon, there are fewer queues. It is almost impossible to get into the Armory on Saturday, because there is always an extremely interesting spectacle on the Cathedral Square at noon, and peoplereally want to see this ceremony. Indeed, everyone wants to see the horse and foot guards of the Presidential Regiment, queues take several hours. On holidays and vacation days, 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.
Adult ticket at the box office costs 700 rubles, reduced - 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 the age of sixteen (no more than two children), each family member needs a ticket for two hundred rubles. Disabled people of the first and second groups, families with many children, cadets, war veterans, military personnel, orphans, museum workers, clergymen, preschoolers pass free of charge.
Before viewing the exhibition
Visitors express admiration for the architecture of the building complex in almost all of their reviews of the Armory. Address - Moscow Kremlin, Palace Square. Here, on Borovitsky Hill, there was once a hutch yard, and then a building was built on this site (completion of work in 1851), specialized as a museum.
Both the architecture itself and the scale are very close to the Kremlin Palace: on two floors with a basement of variable height, with double-height windows and decorative trim on the facade. The main decoration is white marble columns with rich floral ornaments.
And inside, visitors do not immediately turn their eyes to the exhibits, since Gothic interiors require attention at least for a while:vaulted ceilings, high, 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 artifacts
Ancient Russia and Byzantium have long been linked in the strongest way by both religion and art. The Armory has a small collection of exhibits of extraordinary value - Byzantine art from the fifth to the fifteenth century. About the year 400, for example, a silver jug is dated, on which all nine muses are depicted.
Ancient Greek art left its artistic traditions in Byzantium for a long time. This can also be observed in other exhibits - ancient proportions in the depiction of human figures, the majesty and solemnity of each image, even their sublime detachment. The greatest achievement of the masters of Byzantium is cloisonne enamels, the most complex technique in which they had no equal.
There are quite a lot of items of this series in the Armory: "Crucifixion" (ninth century), "Descent into Hell" (twelfth century), pectoral icons - exceptionally high workmanship. No less beautiful are Byzantine cameos on semi-precious stones (jasper, lapis lazuli), depicting the Almighty Savior and the Russian patriarchs (multi-figured compositions).
Russian art
Masterpieces of silver and gold craftsmen of Moscow and Veliky Novgorod of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are richly presented in the Armory. Here only a high professional will be able to distinguishprovincial art from the capital.
But there are exhibits much earlier, which were made by masters in the fourth and fifth centuries, they are no less interesting to history buffs, although they differ greatly in execution technique. Works of art from Serbia, Georgia and many other countries are exhibited, including real relics. For example, the ancestral shrine of the Grand Dukes of Moscow of the twelfth century is a stavrotek for an icon, in which there is a piece of the cross from Golgotha.
Afterword
It is absolutely impossible to describe in words the beauty of the exhibits of the Armory, even the most modern means of photography cannot fully 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 examples of the highest craftsmanship, filled with the smallest details that cannot be overlooked. The Armory is not just a museum of applied arts, it is a truly imperial collection of relics and rarities, a symbol of the material basis of statehood, the continuity of traditions, the history of our great ancestors.
