Central Naval Museum

On the embankment of the Kryukov Canal, in a restored building that once housed naval barracks, is located the country's main naval museum, named after its founder, Peter the Great. It is one of Russia's oldest museum institutions and one of the largest naval museums in the world: its collection numbers over 700,000 items, including more than two thousand ship models, and its network of branches spans several cities across the country.

The museum's history goes back to January 1709, when a letter of Peter I first mentions the St Petersburg Model Chamber — a repository of ship drawings and models at the Main Admiralty. A decree of 1722 obliged shipwrights to hand over a half-model of every vessel built to the Admiralty College; around eighty such 18th-century models survive to this day. As shipbuilding developed, the collection lost its practical significance and in 1805 was reorganised into the "Naval Museum", but in 1827 it was closed by decree of Nicholas I.

The museum's revival is linked to the name of naval historian Sergei Yelagin, whose initiative was supported by the naval minister Krabbe. The reopening took place on 27 August 1867, and by the end of the century the institution had gained worldwide renown, taking part in dozens of domestic and international exhibitions. In 1908, on the museum's 200th anniversary, it was given the name of its founder, Peter the Great. The museum acquired its modern name in 1924, and in 1939 it moved into the building of the former stock exchange on the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island; the exhibition opened in February 1941 soon closed because of the war — the most valuable exhibits were evacuated to Ulyanovsk, and the museum did not receive visitors again until July 1946.

In the post-war decades a network of branches took shape: in 1956 the first ship-museum in the USSR opened aboard the cruiser Aurora, in 1972 the "Road of Life" branch opened on Lake Ladoga, in 1980 an exhibition opened in the building of Kronstadt Naval Cathedral, and in 1994 the submarine D-2 "Narodovolets" became the country's first fully fledged submarine museum. In 1975 the museum was awarded the Order of the Red Star.

The museum's current building — the former Kryukov Naval Barracks — was built by the architect Ivan Chernik in 1844–1852 on the site of earlier provisions warehouses. The move of the collection was completed in April 2013: during restoration efforts were made not to alter the historic pattern of the façades, the old staircases and the layout of the rooms, while the central three-tiered hall was united with the space of the courtyard. Special wide openings were fitted for the large models of sailing ships, and visitors enter the museum through an arch on the canal side. The full exhibition of nineteen halls opened for Navy Day on 27 July 2014.

Among the most valuable relics are a small boat on which Peter I himself learned to sail as a young man and which came to be called the "grandfather of the Russian navy", a submarine designed by Dzhevetsky dating from 1881, and models of ships from unrealised Soviet projects. The exhibition traces the history of the navy from the Petrine era to the present day.