Excursion to the Kremlin

Excursion to the Kremlin (Armory Chamber, the Diamond Fund)

The Armory — a museum treasure-house — a part of the Grand Kremlin Palace complex. It is located in a building constructed in 1851 by architect Konstantin Ton.
The museum features over four thousand monuments of arts and crafts of Russia, Europe and the East dating back to the 4th century and till the beginning of the 20th century. Their highest artistic level and particular historical and cultural value made the Moscow Kremlin Armory world-famous.
Diamond Fund of the Russian Federation is the Moscow Kremlin Museum, which exhibits an integral part of the Gokhran fund of Russia — a collection of unique nuggets of precious metals and stones, jewelry made of precious metals and gems of historical and artistic value.
The collection began to form in the 18th century, when Peter the Great issued a special decree on the conservation of things, «of state property», thereby recognizing that the most significant of them should belong not only to the royal family, but the whole Russia. Precious objects of state regalia, insignia and secular decorations of many generations of Russian tsars until 1914 were kept in the special Diamond study of the Winter Palace (Imperial Renteria).
After the beginning of the First World War the valuables were hastily evacuated to the Moscow Kremlin, where were kept in basements for almost eight years.