Here you will find works of art connected with the history of the Russian state and the development of its artistic culture. The museum building was erected in 1844—51 from a design by the architect Konstantin Thon, in whose work buildings of the so-called "Russian style" played a particularly important part.
      The Armoury is housed in a two-storey building on a high socle. In plan it is a long rectangle with semicircular halls at the ends and a circular hall in the middle. The main facade echoes that of the Great Kremlin Palace (about which more is said later), also designed by Konstantin Thon.

The Armoury

      Between the Armoury and the Great Kremlin Palace is a small courtyard with the Apartments, where high-ranking officials visiting the Soviet Union stay. A special arcaded passage-way links the Apartments with the Palace.
      On the south side of the courtyard is wrought iron trellis made in the late 1840s from a design by the architect Ivan Mironovsky.
      The history of the Armoury goes back to the dim and distant past. The oldest repository for the treasures and jewels of the grand princes of Moscow was the Treasury, or Treasury Court, known to have existed in the fifteenth century. It contained richly decorated arms, ceremonial robes, icons, gold and silver plate, ambassadorial gifts, and also the emblems of political power used during coronations, solemn processions of the grand princes and tsars and receptions for foreign envoys.
      It must be added that the items in the Treasury Court were not only stored there, but also removed for use by the grand princes and tsars and for official ceremonies which from the sixteenth century were particularly sumptuous in Russia. One of the first descriptions of articles from the Treasury Court being used for a dinner given by the tsar has been left by Sig-mund von Herberstein: "The tables in the dining-hall were arranged in a circle and a ring. In the middle of the hall was a sideboard richly laden with gold and silver... All the vessels upon the sideboard and the service from which we had eaten, drunk and taken pepper, vinegar and salt were of gold, as could be told from the weight apart from other evidence."
      As time went on the Treasury acquired more and more valuable objects. Under Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow it grew so large that in 1484—85 a special stone Treasury Court was built for it between the Archangel and Annunciation cathedrals. By this time the Grand Prince's treasury, which had previously been more like private property, acquired the significance of a national repository in connection with the formation of the united Russian state.
      The valuables, clothing, utensils and bedding kept in the palace for everyday use came under the aegis of the Bedding Treasury. Towards the end of the sixteenth century this appears to have been turned into the Workshop Chamber, where all manner of things were made for the everyday use of the royal court. Later this chamber was divided into two, the Tsar's and the Tsarina's. The former came under the Tsar, while the latter was managed directly by the Tsarina and was situated in the Terem Palace under her chambers. Here they made rich robes, bedding and various coverlets with the most exquisite ornamental patterns and complex compositions.
      In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the Stable Treasury appeared, in which precious objects for royal processions, harnesses and carriages were made and stored. How sumptuous and solemn these processions were can be judged from the followina descriotion of one made by Boris Godunov: "The train opened with 600 horsemen riding three abreast... then followed twenty-five stud-horses with precious saddle-cloths. The horses were led by just as richly attired grooms. Next came an empty gilded carriage... Finally, the Tsar appeared. His carriage was drawn by white horses. It was covered with velvet, and the top rested on four supports decorated by silver balls. Half an hour later came the Tsarina in a splendid, spacious coach drawn by ten white horses. In front of the coach were forty harnessed studhorses led by richly dressed grooms. Then in a completely covered carriage came the Tsarevna Xenia. Her carriage was drawn by eight fine horses. The suite accompanying the Tsarina and Tsarevna rode on white horses. Five hundred horsemen brought up the rear."