Central Naval Museum

In 1805, the Maritime Museum was created, the basis of which was the Model Camera collections. By the end of the 19th century. The Maritime Museum has become a significant Russian cultural and scientific center and has gained fame throughout the world.

In 1908, before the solemn celebration of the 200th anniversary of the museum, it was named after its founder, Peter the Great. Having changed a number of names, it became the Central Naval Museum in 1924. Adjustments to its exhibition were made in accordance with the spirit of the times.

In August 1939, one of the most beautiful buildings in Leningrad, the Exchange building, was transferred to the Central Naval Museum. In February 1941, the exhibition opened in new halls, but four months later the Great Patriotic War began. The most valuable exhibits were evacuated to Ulyanovsk. In July 1946, the museum returned from evacuation and reopened its doors to visitors.

After the war, a modern network of branches of the Central Naval Museum began to be created. In 1956, a branch was opened on the cruiser Aurora, the first museum ship in our country. In 1972, a branch of the “Road of Life” was opened in the village of Osinovets on the shore of Lake Ladoga. In 1980, the Kronstadt Fortress branch began operating in the building of the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral. Work on creating a branch on one of the first Soviet-built submarines, the D-2 Narodovolets, ended with the opening of a memorial complex in 1994, which became the first fully museum-worthy submarine in our country.

The work on promoting the history of the fleet was highly appreciated - in 1975, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Central Naval Museum was awarded the Order of the Red Star.

Since the 1980s again, for the first time since pre-revolutionary times, the museum's foreign exhibition activities received great development, which allowed the museum to achieve wider recognition not only in Russia, but also abroad. Nowadays the museum maintains business relations and organizes joint exhibitions with dozens of Russian and foreign museums

Over the three centuries of its existence, the museum has collected a huge number of valuable museum items reflecting the most important events in the history of the fleet. The museum's holdings contain more than 700,000 of them, including over 13,000 items of naval equipment, more than 11,000 bladed weapons and firearms, over 62,000 works of fine art, more than 56,000 items of clothing, awards and badges, flags and banners, over 44,000 documents and manuscripts, about 300,000 photographs and negatives, hundreds of thousands of sheets of drawings.

The museum has one of the world's richest collections of ship models (about 2000 units). The model collection clearly reflects the history of Russian and foreign military shipbuilding.

With the participation of the museum, hundreds of exhibitions were held in St. Petersburg, Moscow and cities of the Russian Federation. Fruitful creative ties were established between the Central Museum of Mathematics and Museums of foreign countries; exhibitions with his participation were exhibited in more than 20 countries.

In 2012, the existing branches of the Central Military Museum received the status of structural divisions of the museum. The Museum of the Baltic Fleet (Baltiysk) and the Ship of Military Glory “Mikhail Kutuzov” (Novorossiysk) were added to them.

In April 2013, the transfer of the TsVMM collection to the restored complex of the Kryukov (Naval) barracks was completed. In 2013, an exhibition complex consisting of six halls, an exhibition in the atrium and the first stage of the main exhibition consisting of 6 halls began operating. For Navy Day, July 27, 2014, the exhibition consisting of 19 halls is fully open to the public.