Central Naval Museum

a museum in Leningrad, located on Vasil’evskii Island, 4 Pushkin Square. The museum dates to 1709, when Peter I the Great ordered the establishment of the Model Repository for the collection and preservation of models and blueprints of vessels. In 1805 the Model Repository became the Naval Museum, which was originally housed in the Admiralty. The Russian navigators I. F. Kruzenshtern, Iu. F. Lisianskii, M. P. Lazarev, and F. P. Litke were largely instrumental in collecting exhibits for the museum. In 1939 the museum was moved from the Admiralty to the former Stock Exchange building.

The Central Naval Museum is a scientific research and educational institution. Its 12 halls house exhibits chronicling the history of the Russian and Soviet navies. The valuable collection of originals and models of foreign and Russian vessels is the finest in the world. It features one of the oldest vessels in the world—an oak dugout that lay 3,000 years at the bottom of the Iuzhnyi Bug River. Among the other exhibits are Peter I the Great’s yawl and models of the first galleys of the regular Russian Navy and of sailing ships and armored steamships, including ships with a revolutionary tradition, such as the armor-clad Potemkin, the cruiser Ochakov, and the battleship Gangut; there are also models of ships of the modern Soviet Navy. The exhibits cover the life and combat training of naval personnel, foreign campaigns, and the training exercises and maneuvers of warships. The museum has 664,500 individual exhibits, including 1,700 ship models, 7,100 models of weapons and combat equipment, and more than 1,400 works of art.

The museum has a branch on the cruiser Aurora; other branches include The Road to Life exhibit on the shore of Lake Ladoga and the Kronstadt Fortress and Çeşme Victory exhibits in Kronstadt. A society of military science is affiliated with the museum. The museum was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1975.