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Alexandrovskiy Park 7, Kronverk
Tel. 232 0296
Subway:
Gorkovskaya
Open: 11am- 5pm Wed- Sun
Closed: last Sunday
each month
The Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps (Artillery Museum) is a Soviet and Russian museum in the city of St. Petersburg.
The history of the formation of the modern museum originates from the
Zeughaus (German: Zeughaus - weapons house), founded in St. Petersburg
in 1703 by Peter I, who in 1702 issued a decree on the collection of
military monuments "for memory for eternal glory", and in gave an order
to preserve for history a mortar cast in 1605 by the cannon maker Andrei
Chokhov and his student Pronya Fedorov and located in the Moscow
Arsenal.
In 1711, the St. Petersburg Foundry Yard was founded. In
1776, Prince G. G. Orlov built a three-story arsenal building on Liteiny
Prospekt, where the Memorable Hall, a storage place for museum rarities,
was located on the second floor. In 1817, P.P. Svinin published the
first description of the Memorial Hall in Russian and French, and by
1860 this collection included more than 10,000 items placed in 19 rooms
of the arsenal. In 1850-1851, the Foundry Yard, together with the
Arsenal, was transferred to new buildings on the Vyborg side, which
later received the name "New Arsenal". Since 1868, the museum has been
located on the crown work of the Peter and Paul Fortress; this building
was erected in 1851-1860 by the architect P. I. Tamansky according to
the plan proposed by Emperor Nicholas I. since 1903 - the Artillery
Historical Museum.
In 1890, on the pages of the Encyclopedic
Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, this museum was described in the
following words:
The Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg is one of the
most historically remarkable repositories of all kinds of weapons and
military armor and accessories. Its collections are divided into two
departments: Russian and foreign. The 1st embraces the history of
Russian weapons and artillery, from the end of the 14th century to
contemporary models, inclusive. The 2nd, foreign department consists
chiefly of the trophies of wars, chiefly of the 18th century. Moreover,
the museum stores various historical items that accidentally got there,
for example, the uniforms and weapons of Peter I, Peter III, Catherine
II, Alexander I, Nicholas I; the saddle of Ivan the Terrible, the
working tunic of Peter the Great; uniform and underwear of Frederick the
Great; posthumous cast from the face of Suvorov; General's uniform
Miloradovich, in which he was killed on December 14, 1825; Stenka
Razin's stool and cane, etc. - A complete description of the museum was
compiled by the city of Brandenburg and published in 1889 on the
occasion of the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Russian
artillery.
A great contribution to the preservation of "inverter,
curious and memorable things" was made by the head of the artillery
department, Count P. I. Shuvalov, since 1756, second lieutenant I. I.
Meller became the head of the repository. In 1872, N. E. Brandenburg was
appointed head of the museum, who published the Historical Catalog of
the St. Petersburg Artillery Museum in 1877-1883.
During the
Great Patriotic War, a significant part of the museum's collection was
evacuated to Novosibirsk (the head of the museum, Colonel F. Ya. Kuske,
left with it), but about a third remained inside the blockade ring. In
incredibly difficult conditions, the "Novosibirsk" and "Leningrad"
groups not only saved unique exhibits, but also launched temporary
exhibitions, gave lectures in hospitals and military educational
institutions, and since 1943 they also carried out field work to collect
at the front and at defense enterprises rare and valuable exhibits
(captured weapons, weapons of hero warriors, experimental samples,
etc.). The museum workers who remained in Leningrad also organized an
air defense squad: only after the air raid on October 8, 1941, it put
out 120 incendiary bombs on the territory of the museum.
In
1963-1965, the funds of the Central Historical Military Engineering
Museum and the Military Museum of Communications became part of the
Artillery Historical Museum.
The exposition of the Military
Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps is located in
13 halls, placed in chronological order. To date, the museum's
collection includes over 850 thousand exhibits and covers the time from
the XIV century to the present day. After reconstruction in November
2002, over 250 examples of guns, self-propelled artillery mounts (ACS),
missile systems and several tanks are displayed in the courtyard of the
museum. Among other things, the museum contains ancient bronze tools of
Russian and European casters, distinguished by their rich patterned
finish - Swedish and French trophies. There are several cannons made by
the outstanding craftsman Andrey Chokhov. The halls display many Soviet
and German models of small arms and artillery weapons from the Great
Patriotic War.
On November 19, 2013, a monument-bust to Grand
Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich (sculptor A. A. Apollonov) was unveiled on the
territory of the museum. In the courtyard to the right of the museum
building, next to the Kronverk Canal, there is a monument to the
Decembrists, who were executed on this site in 1826. In November 2019, a
monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov was unveiled in front of the entrance to
the museum.
1st floor
History of artillery until the middle of the 19th
century.
Knight's Hall
History of artillery from the middle of the
19th century to 1917.
History of missile weapons.
History of the
engineering troops after 1917.
II floor
History of the engineering
troops until 1917
History of cadet education in Russia in the
18th-19th centuries.
III floor
Signal troops during the Great
Patriotic War (1941-1945)
History of the signal troops
Artillery
during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1943)
Artillery during the Great
Patriotic War (1944-1945)
History of artillery from 1918 to July 1941
M. I. Kutuzov and the Patriotic War of 1812
Kalashnikov is a man, a
weapon, a legend.
1903 - 1917 - Strukov, Dmitry Petrovich
1918 - 1919 - Pechenkin,
Nikolai Mikhailovich
1919 - 1924 - Peshchansky, Mikhail Alexandrovich
1924 - 1925 - Davydov, Alexander Vladimirovich
1926 - Georguli,
Mikhail Alexandrovich
1926 - 1928 - Peshchansky, Mikhail
Alexandrovich
1928 - 1931 - Tyagunov, Nikolai Fedorovich
1932 -
1935 - Nepomniachtchi, Dmitry Mikhailovich
1935 - 1941 - Kuske, Jan
Frantsevich
1941 - Mungalov, Ivan Mikhailovich
1941 - 1948 -
Kuske, Jan Frantsevich
1948 - 1950 - Lebedev, Pyotr Konstantinovich
1950 - 1953 - Alexey Stepanovich Kargin
1953 - 1960 - Yermoshin,
Joseph Petrovich
1960 - 1968 - Andrey Alekseevich Bumagin
1968 -
1974 - Sotnikov, Alexander Alekseevich
1974 - 1979 - Bulba, Vladimir
Ivanovich
1979 - 1991 - Kravchenko, Mikhail Yakovlevich
1991 -
present - Krylov, Valery Mikhailovich
Gratitude of the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation (August 28, 2003) - for many years of fruitful creative activity in preserving monuments of military prowess and noble traditions of serving our Fatherland, a great contribution to the patriotic education of Russian citizens.