Kunstkamera

In 1718, Peter I decided to turn the Kunstkamera into a public museum.
And already in 1719, the museum’s exhibits were placed in Kikin’s chambers confiscated by the treasury near the Smolny Dvor. This room, however, was temporary: firstly, there was not enough space to accommodate all the exhibits; secondly, the chambers were too far from the city center. By the time the museum opened, the number of collections on display amazed not only Russians, but also Europeans.
Famous “academic” expeditions to Europe were sent to acquire new exhibits, where, by order of Peter I, “rarities” were acquired for the Kunstkamera. In the first years of the museum’s existence, there were even living “exhibits”: freaks, dwarfs, giants. The Kunstkamera building in St. Petersburg, built from 1718 to 1734, is one of the few well-preserved architectural monuments of the first quarter of the 18th century.

The initial design of the building was developed by the architect G. Matarnovi, and the construction was carried out by the architects N. Gerbel, G. Chiaveri and M. Zemtsov. The Kunstkamera consists of two three-story buildings of equal appearance, which are connected by a central building of complex configuration.

A multi-tiered tower was erected above the central building. The eastern building with a two-story hall was intended for a library, the western building with exactly the same hall was intended for museum collections. The central building and tower, which was originally crowned by a wooden tower, housed an anatomical theater and an observatory. The Gottorp Globe Planetarium was located in the round hall on the third floor. This unique globe, created in the 17th century in Germany, was brought to St. Petersburg in 1717 as a gift to Peter I. The diameter of the globe was 3.1 meters. All the then known countries, seas and rivers were depicted on the outside, and inside the globe was the world's first planetarium. The Kunstkamera moved to a new building in 1727.
According to the decree of Peter I, admission to the museum was free. The museum had attendants who greeted and led visitors through all the rooms, showing “rarities” with brief explanations. In 1741-1745, a two-volume catalog of the Kunstkamera and an illustrated guide to the museum were published in German and Russian. In 1747, there was a fire in the museum building.
Most of the ethnographic collections were lost, the Gottorp Globe was damaged, and the wooden tower on the tower burned down. The building was restored in 1754-1758 by the architect S. Chevakinsky, who significantly simplified the original appearance of the Kunstkamera. The stucco baroque decoration of the vaults of the first floor of the Kunstkamera, made in the 1760s, has survived to this day.
In 1777-1779, when the 50th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences was celebrated, the museum premises were decorated with sculptural allegorical groups, busts and medallions of outstanding scientists, of which two plaster bas-reliefs were preserved - “Russia” and “Celebrating Europe” - the work of the sculptor M. Pavlov. Among the sculptural portraits, a bas-relief depicting the great 18th century mathematician L. Euler has survived. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, the ethnographic collections of the Kunstkamera were replenished by many famous travelers, among whom were J. Cook, I. Kruzenshtern, Y. Lisnyansky, F. Bellingshausen, N. Miklouho-Maclay.

In the 20-30s of the 19th century, independent academic museums were created on the basis of the Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg - Ethnographic, Asian, Egyptian, Anatomical, Zoological, Botanical, Mineralogical museums and the Cabinet of Peter I. Some of these museums were located in the Kunstkamera building, some - in two neighboring buildings on the banks of the Neva. Until the end of the 18th century, the museum building also housed some institutions of the Academy of Sciences founded by Peter I. In 1903, in connection with the 200th anniversary, the museum was given the name “Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after Emperor Peter the Great.”
During the Great Patriotic War the museum was closed.
But already in 1946 it was opened to the general public. In 1947-1948, the architect R. Kaplan-Ingel restored the upper part of the Kunstkamera tower. Nowadays, in the halls of the museum, in addition to anthropological and ethnographic collections, objects that were in the Kunstkamera under Peter I are exhibited. In the premises of the tower there is the M. V. Lomonosov Museum, which houses the famous Gottorp Globe, restored after the fire of 1747.