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Peter the Great founds the Model-kammer (Central Naval Museum)
January 13 (24), 1709 Peter I, who was in the Ukraine with his army, sent a direction to St. Petersburg addressed to A. V. Kikin, which stated: "Take the model-kammer from my mansion (in the village) and place it near Admiralty court where appropriate ... "- This written testimony is considered the founding date of the St. Petersburg model-kammer, the future Central Naval Museum, one of the oldest museums in Russia and one of the largest maritime museums in the world.
Special storehouses of ship models, drawings and drawing tools for designing new ships, which existed at European shipyards and Admiralties, served as a training base for the training of seafarers and ship masters.
Date of foundation of St. Petersburg model-kammer is relative, since the letter of Peter I speaks about its replacement. Thus, the model-kammer existed before, and according to military investigators’ assumption, was formed shortly after the founding of St. Petersburg itself. At that time it was intended to serve the needs of the first shipyards of the city - Kronverksky and Admiralteysky.
St. Petersburg model-kammer, first intended only for shipbuilding, a kind of "design department", turned in mid 1730-ies into an "information center". Models and outdated drawings, as well as plans, geographic and navigation maps, which had been primarily located in different divisions of the Admiralty, were assembled. Collection of Model-kammer during this period grew rapidly. At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries, ship model loses its function as an element of the project and becomes a monument to shipbuilding, a work of arts and crafts and a historical relic.
In 1805, Tsar Alexander I approved the report, which envisaged the establishment of a museum under the Admiralty department, which "will house all the curious works for its library, curio cabinet, machines, models, physical, mathematical instruments, and which every man with its permission [department administration] can visit and enjoy reading books or viewing things". Thus, collections of model-kammer became the basis of the Naval Museum. The new museum was also to provide sailors, who went to sea, with the latest navigation tools and books. Joining the Naval Museum to the library of the Admiralty Board turned it into a major naval cultural center; major national seafarers contributed to its collection development: I. F. Kruzenstern, Yu. F. Lisyanskii, F. F. Bellingshausen, F. P. Wrangell. Among the items granted by them to the museum, there were guns, boats, minerals, stuffed birds and animals.
In 1908, before the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the museum, it was given the name of its founder - Peter the Great.
After the events of 1917 the museum's holdings had significantly increased owing to the collections transferred from the museums of Guards naval crew and the Sea Cadet Corps. Seven years later the museum received a new status - the Central Naval Museum. In 1939, the museum was given the former Stock Exchange building, erected at the beginning of the XIX century by architect Thomas de Thomon on the Spit of Basil Island, to house its collections.
The museum's collection numbers over 800 000 exhibits, including models of ancient and modern ships, examples of arms and military equipment, navigation tools, maps, photographs, flags and banners, military trophies and personal belongings of famous Russian navigators and naval commanders, the vast collections of paintings and numismatics.
Lit.: Губер К. П., Чернявксий С. В. Центральный военно-морской музей: [Путеводитель]. СПб., 2004; Записки музея. Вып. I-III: Сборник статей. Л., 1958-1968; Краткий каталог Морского музея. СПб., 1887; Морская слава России. Центральный военно-морской музей. М., 2003; Морской музей России. СПб., 2009; Морской музей России. Центральный военно-морской музей / Петровские музеи Северной столицы. СПб., 2000; На Октябрьской вахте: Сборник научных трудов сотрудников ЦВММ. Л., 1987; Огородников С. Ф. Модель-камера впоследствии Морской музей имени императора Петра Великого: Исторический очерк. 1709-1909. СПб., 1909; Огородников С. Ф. Морской музей в С.-Петербурге: Сборник кратких сведений по морскому ведомству № 13. СПб., 1908; Труды Центрального военно-морского музея: сборник научных статей. СПб., 1999.
Центральный военно-морской музей: сайт. 2014-2019. URL: http://navalmuseum.ru/.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials: