Museums of Russia: St. Petersburg’s Central Navy Museum will be named back after Peter the Great

Russian Ministry of Defense decided to rename the Central Naval Museum (St. Petersburg) into the Maritime Museum of Peter the Great, according to head of the Department of Culture of Ministry of Defence Anton Gubankov.

As he said, the decision to return to the museum its historic name has been approved by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

"Now we facing a number of institutional arrangements, it is necessary to accept a new charter. I think we will soon decide on these issues", - said A. Gubankov.

He noted that the Central Naval Museum has six branches overall making "a sufficiently large museum sector."

Central Naval Museum is one of the oldest museums in Russia, and also has one of the largest collections among the maritime museums around the world. Founded by Peter the First in 1709 Model Camera, meant as storage of shipbuilding models and blueprints, served as a prototype of the museum. A progressive growth of the collection became a reason for the founding in 1805 the "Sea Museum", from which led the beginning of the current museum.

The museum was named after its founder, the Emperor Peter the Great, in 1908. Its current name was issued in 1924 as a result of another renaming.

Initially the museum exposition was set in the Admiralty building, and in 1939 it was moved to Vasilevsky Island into the building of former Stock Exchange. Starting 2013, the Museum is housing in a former Krukov barracks.