The Kunstkammer is a museum and an educational institution

Last year, the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography celebrated its 300th anniversary. It is the successor of the first state public museum of Russia, created by the emperor in 1714. The Kunstkammer is one of the world's largest and oldest ethnographic museums, its collection has more than 1.2 million copies.

Just like they have

According to the creator, she had to become a conductor of the scientific thought of Europe in Russian society. The Kunstkammer is a museum based on the example of European countries. The collection was based on the collections brought by Peter I from the first diplomatic trip to Europe under the "Great Embassy". Before him, none of the Russian tsars made attempts to visit Europe.

For a whole year, Peter I was abroad incognito as the sergeant Pyotr Mikhailov, together with the embassy he visited a number of countries. He studied personal collections, studies of scientists, talked with European specialists, invited them to work in Russia, studied craft and sciences at the same time. The second trip Peter took twenty years later.

Peter the Great in Europe

The details of his visits are known, which serve as a characteristic of his interests. For example, arriving in Dresden in the evening, Peter after dinner at one o'clock in the morning went to get acquainted with the collection of the Kunstkamera, where he stayed until the morning, especially carefully studied the section of mathematical tools and handicraft implements. The exhibits of the Kunstkamera were extremely interesting to him, on the second and third days of his stay in Dresden after seeing military exercises, the arsenal and the foundry, he again returned to them.

In Holland, having learned that a Roman sarcophagus is kept by a collector, the Russian Tsar expressed his desire to see him. After leaving, the owner wrote that Tsar Peter the Great had the honor to see his office, but when he learned that the thing was kept in a dark pantry, he demanded a candelabrum with candles and examined the entire sarcophagus and some of its figures, kneeling.

Free entry

The decree on the creation of the Kunstkamera was not, but the foundation of the museum is associated with the order of Peter I about the transfer to St. Petersburg of the personal collection and library, as well as the collection of "naturalism" and books of the Aptekarskaya Chancellery.

Collections were placed in the Tsar's Summer Palace , later, in 1719, in the confiscated chambers of boyar Kikin, in the same year the exhibits of the Kunstkamera were publicly available by order of the tsar.

As the ancient legend says, Peter I, having entered the museum with rarities, announced that now everyone has an opportunity to get acquainted with the structure of the human body and animals, and also to study a lot of insects, let people look at the diverse world of the inhabitants of the planet. The tsar's assistant, Count Yaguzhinsky, noted that the Kunstkammer (Petersburg) needed financial support and suggested charging one ruble for visiting. The tsar did not like this proposal , and he decided to do the opposite, every guest came to treat him with tea, coffee or vodka. Soon the main watchdog in the year began to be allocated 400 rubles to treat visitors. This tradition was successful and existed during the reign of Anna Ioannovna - all estates without exception could come and at will to treat coffee with a sandwich or vodka.

The choice is ...

The Kunstkammer is a universal place where the collected artifacts in a small space acquaint all comers with the world in all its diversity. The exhibits were collected by the whole country on the basis of government decrees. An important role in the expansion of the collection was played by domestic academic expeditions, income from individuals, purchases from abroad.

The collection was constantly expanding, so a larger room was needed, and the remoteness from the center of the Kikiny Chambers downplayed the importance that the tsar had invested in this "academic" project. According to legend, one day Peter walked along Vasilievsky Island and accidentally noticed two pines, a branch of one of them so ingrained into the trunk of the other that it was difficult to determine which one it belongs to. This phenomenon, as the legend says, led him to the idea of building a museum of rarities in this place.

New building

A new special building was laid in 1718, the author of the project was Mattarnovi. After him, until 1734, three architects were engaged in the building of the choir. Construction moved very slowly, Peter the Great found only the walls. The following year, after his death, the collection was transported to an unfinished building. Finally, the construction was completed, and Europe gasped - nothing like it had ever seen. It was so thought out that without a major overhaul it stood to the present day.

The building is built in the traditions of the Petrine Baroque, consisting of two three-story buildings, their form is connected by a baroque multi-tiered tower, which has a complex dome completion.

The project of Peter

Ten years after the creation of the collection, Peter the Great embodied the second part of the "academic" project. In 1724 the emperor and the Senate established the Academy of Sciences. Now the Kunstkammer and the Library were the first institutions and "cradle" of the Russian Academy.

The museum in the Academy of Sciences began a new life. The richest collections were concentrated in its walls, scientific processing and systematization was carried out, the leading scientific forces of the country supervised the exposition - all this turned it into a unique truly scientific institution, in Europe there were no analogues in organizing work.

The Kunstkammer is not only the scientific base of the Academy of Sciences, but also the most important cultural and educational institution. Many of the largest scientists of Russia, including MV Lomonosov, worked in its walls, he compiled a description of the minerals stored in the Museum.

Exhibits of the museum

Impressive people are not recommended to look at human developmental anomalies. Not everyone can take a look at the spectacle, as the monsters of the Kunstkammer look like: Siamese twins who could not be separated (photo of the skeleton), a child born as a result of incestuous relatives, and others. Also in the photo is a wooden helmet, brought from Alaska (Mitha Island). Mongolian shamans used a flute from the human thigh bone. A Chinese teapot, boiling from the sun's heat, is a wonder. There is a large academic (Gottorp) globe here, it reproduces the current rotation mechanism, astronomy with a starry-sky map inside.

Tickets to the Kunstkamera can be purchased from 11:00 to 17:00 every day, except Monday, at the Universitetskaya embankment, 3.