MUSEUM
ARTILLERY, ENGINEER AND SIGNAL TROOPS
St. Petersburg, Russia
INTRODUCTION
This web site has been prepared as an unofficial display of selected
material from the great Museum of Artillery, Engineers, and Signal Troops in St
Petersburg, Russia by members of the Xenophon Group Int. We want to acknowledge
the gracious assistance of the museum Director, Colonel V. Krilov, the curators
and department heads, especially Mr. A. Kulinski, and the members of their
staffs during our frequent visits to this marvelous museum. Without their
special permission to examine and photograph artifacts among the millions held
in closed areas not open to public view this display would not be possible.
The museum traces its origin to the prescient objectives of
Emperor Peter I, who decreed that an especially historic captured mortar be
preserved at a time the Russian army was desperately melting down all possible
metal to cast new cannon. Jacob Bruce, the Tsar's chief of artillery followed
through by organizing the acquisition and safe storage of historically
important weapons. The Artillery Museum was founded by a government UKAZ in
1756 as the Main Artillery and Fortifications Museum. In 1868 the collections
were moved to the Crownwork Arsenal of the Peter and Paul Fortress, built by
the architect P. I. Tamanski. The museum was named Artillery Museum in 1903 and
in 1963 it was merged with the Central Historical Military Engineer Museum. A
section on the history of military signaling was created in 1965. The
collection is housed in 13 halls containing 15,000 square meters of floor
space. The museum collections include many unique pieces of artillery, rocket
weapons, small arms, and cold weapons. It has a large collection of military
engineer and signal equipment and many displays and dioramas illustrating the
history of these branches. The museum also has outstanding collection of
military flags and standards, military awards and decorations, medals, uniforms
and accoutrements, and combat equipment. It has a large collection of combat
art and graphics displays, sculpture, and paintings. The archive has an
extensive collection of documents dating back to the 16th century. Large
weapons and equipment including vehicles are on display outside, in the
courtyard. The museum conducts an educational program of lectures, displays,
and meetings.
Xenophon Group conducts tours to this museum, which enable the participant to
meet with curators and have access to the large parts of the museum that are
not open to the general public. For information please contact
Xenophon. To view our many other
pages on Russia or military history or for information on other Xenophon Group
activities and publications please go to Xenophon Group. To send
comments about the museum and this web site please send to
Artillery Museum
Selected photographs of the museum
collection
It is our intention to prepare a full description of the museum's history
and current holdings. To this end Micha Jelisavcic is translating hundreds of
pages of documentary text and several hours of oral descriptions obtained
during our visit in July 1998. As this will take some time, we, meanwhile, want
to let everyone see the photographic illustrations made during visits in 1991,
92, 93, and 1998. With the understanding that the present captions are
inadequate and are being replaced as rapidly as possible, please go to
Illustrations to view our on-going production work. As
the sections describing individual parts of the museum are prepared they will
be highlighted with links for the following categories.
HISTORY
ARTILLERY DEPARTMENT
SMALL ARMS AND COLD WEAPONS DEPARTMENT
ENGINEER DEPARTMENT
SIGNAL DEPARTMENT
LIBRARY
ARCHIVE
UNIFORMS AND FLAGS
SPECIAL EXHIBITION - MARSHAL KUTUZOV
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