Memory of the World: The exhibition "The Russian Eagle in the Balkans", dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, in St. Petersburg

The exhibition "The Russian Eagle in the Balkans", dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the beginning of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, was opened in the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps (St. Petersburg).

The museum has many relics of this war. Some of them can be seen on a permanent exposition in one of the halls of the museum. However, the opportunity to show them in full was presented only now.

By the jubilee date, the museum prepared a large-scale exhibition, on which the original masterpieces dedicated to the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, the memorial items of its participants, weapons, the clothing of the warring parties, the rare communication devices used in this war, plans, maps and Mock battles. Many of them have never been demonstrated before.

Since the war, the museum has kept a large number of keys from the Turkish cities and fortresses captured by the Russian troops in the Balkans. However, in the middle of the last century, almost all of them were transferred to Bulgarian museums. Nevertheless, several relics survived. The exhibition in particular shows the key from the city of Adrianople (Edirne), which was the summer residence of Ottoman sultans.

The undoubted pearl of the exhibition is the monumental painting of the famous battle artist Vasily Vereshchagin "Attack", written as a response to the storming of Plevna. As you know, this subject was devoted to a few paintings by the painter. This picture remained unfinished. It is demonstrated for the first time in many years. Also at the exhibition you can see pictures of other famous battle artists - A. D. Kivshenko, N. D. Dmitriev-Orenburgsky and others.

Visitors will be able to see orders and medals of soldiers and officers famous on the battlefields of the Russian-Turkish war, photographs of the burials of Russian soldiers in Bulgaria, luxurious, silver-edged, photo albums made in memory of the Russian-Turkish war and other memorabilia.

The exhibition "Russian Eagle in the Balkans" will be open until the end of January 2018.