History of Russia: The exhibition “Petrograd Diary”, dedicated to the First World War Centenary, in Saint-Petersburg

November 13, 2014 the Rumyantsev Palace (Saint-Petersburg) hosts the exhibition “Petrograd Diary”.

The exhibition features more than 200 exhibits from the collections of the State Museum of the History of Saint-Petersburg and 23 photographs from the Central State Archive of Cinema and Photo Documents. 

It tells of the events of the First World War through the prism of life of Petersburg-Petrograd, chronologically covering the period from July 1914 (Russia’s entry into the war) until March 1918 (the signing of Brest-Litovsk peace, which marked Russia’s withdrawal from the war). The complex of documentary photographs, depicted Russian capital during the war time, and demonstrating by a number of photographs from the front positions of the Russia army, portraits of generals, maps with marked zones of combat operations and the movement of troops that allow to create historical parallels and to trace the close relationship of events, taking place at the front and the rear. The exhibition also features original overcoat and fur cap of ordinary Pavlovsky Regiment, items of military life of soldiers and officers of the Russian army; medical instruments and medical staff’s form of the First World War.

Of particular interest are materials devoted to charitable activities during the First World War. In particular, the exposition contains reconstruction of the "home hospital", reminiscent of that in the Rumyantsev Palace (at that time the mansion of Kotchubey) on the English Embankment, as in many other mansions of the Petersburg nobility, at the expense of the owners was organized a hospital for wounded warriors.

A special section of the exhibition is devoted to the military hospital trains. During the First World War, wealthy citizens, members of the royal family and members of the aristocracy on their funds organized military hospital trains and often went to the front, where par with simple medical personnel saved lives of wounded soldiers.

The exhibition is complemented with authentic and reconstructed military uniforms and equipment of the First World War from the private collections of members of historical clubs of Saint-Petersburg.