Collections

More than 24 000 items.
Collections of the numismatics fund reflect the history of St. Petersburg and Russia in general; give an idea of the political, social and cultural life of the XVIII-XX centuries and illustrate the history of the national medallic art and coinage. 

Approximately 11 000 items.
The history of formation of the fund may be divided into two periods - 1900-1910s (The Museum of Old Petersburg) and 1970-1980s when during reparation or demolition of old urban areas the museum received a lot of architectural objects. Chronologically the fund covers the period from the XVIII to mid-XX century.

More than 15 000 items.
The fund presents a variety of household objects made of metal, wood, paper, ivory and stone describing the life and manners of various social groups of St.Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad from the middle of the XVIII century to the present.

More than 12 380 items.
The fund posesses objects of artistic and historical value. These are sculptures, vases and tableware including items with views of St. Petersburg-Leningrad and its environs, with portraits and domestic scenes. Major part of the fund is presented by samples of mass production of ceramics and glass which were widely used by citizens.

More than 13,000 items.
The archaeological collection was formed in early 1970s and was expanded with items from archaeological excavations of burial mounds, hills, sites of ancient settlements, embattled cities, etc., located on the territories of Leningrad, Pskov regions and St. Petersburg.

The excavations were funded by the Museum of the History of the ... ↓ City and were guided by well-known archaeologists - O.I.Boguslavskii, A.N.Kirpichnikov, V.I.Kildushevsky, V.A.Colchatov, V.A.Nazarenko, V.P.Petrenko, E.A.Ryabinin, N.V.Khvoshchinskaya, etc.

The collection reflects the whole history of the North-West region of Russia for the chronological period from the VIII to the XX centuries and shows the development of the material culture of diverse tribes and nations, containing at its core not only Russian and Slavic, but Finnish, Scandinavian, Baltic cultures that influenced the process of the emergence and development of St. Petersburg. ↑

About 6000 items.
The collection includes objects of decorative art, interior design, industrial design, created both in Russia and in other countries in the XVIII–XX centuries and existed in Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad in the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods.

The objects reveal valuable information about the era of their creation and help to reflect ... ↓ the history of the city on the Neva river. The bulk of the collection was formed in 1970-1990-ies.

Many items have found their place in the Museum through the stock-purchase Commission (the purchase and the gift). The collection represents a group of memorial items received from the heirs of well-known figures of science and culture, such as artist M. V. Matyushin, the academician D. S. Likhachev, composer I. O. Dunaevsky and others.

Decorative and applied art (furniture collection) is open for visitors in organized groups on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday sessions at 12.00 and 15.00. ↑ ↑

More than 13 000 items.
The fund presents items of dress, shoes, headwear and accessories of the XVIII - early XXI centuries, which allow to trace back the history of the costumes for several centuries.

2 704 items.
The collection stored in the fund covers the time period of the second half of the XIX - end of the XX century.

More than 8 000 items.
The main part of the fund consists of a variety of labour-saving devices, used in urban environment or manufactured by enterprises of St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad. Timeline of the items covers the period from the middle of the XIX - end of the XX century.

More than 1 000 items.
The fund contains different types of Russian and foreign firearms and cold-steal weapons, ammunition and protective arms of the XVIII-XX centuries.

About 4000 items.
The fund keeps fabrics (excluding clothes and accessories), which reflect the history, culture and everyday life of St. Petersburg during the period of XVIII-early XXI centuries.

The basis of the museum's collection is formed by the Sergey Kirov Museum Fund, which stores 38 765 items.

About 43 000 items. One of the oldest collections in the museum, existing since the foundation of the Museum of Old Petersburg in 1907.

The main sources of its replenishment - collections of imperial and grand ducal palaces, collections of Prince Vladimir Argutinskii-Dolgorukov, Pyotr Veiner, Alexander Haush, Lev Ilin and gifts from ... ↓ individuals. The collections contain works of the XVIII-XX centuries.

The chronological frameworks of the collections - from the foundation of St. Petersburg until 1917. ↑

About 30 000 items.
The collection includes works of the XVI – early XX centuries. The main sources of replenishment - the collections of imperial and grand-ducal palaces, St. Petersburg’s mansions and private collections.

Among the exhibits of the fund there are the engravings of special value by Stefano Du Perac, Jacques Rigaud, Giovanni Battista Piranesi ... ↓ and other masters, paintings and drawings by Russian and West European artists Alexey Bogolyubov, Iosif Krachkovsky , Lev Kamenev, Konstantin Pervuhin, Ilya Repin, Georgy Lukomsky, Ivan Shishkin, Luigi (Ludwig) Premazzi, architects Yakov Gevirts, Robert Gödicke and Andrey Ol ↑

More than 27 000 items. The collection of the contemporary painting and graphics stores the works of Leningrad - St. Petersburg artists of the XX-XXI centuries. All types of prints, drawings, watercolors, gouache, tempera and paintings are represented in this collection. A significant part of the collection is occupied by works devoted to the Great Patriotic War and the Siege of Leningrad. ... ↓ Chronologically, the works in the collection cover the period from 1917 to the present day. ↑

More than 17 000 items. Fund of architectural graphics and cartography is a collection of museum objects which reflect the history of the world urban construction.

Fund of sculpture has more than 1,000 items and includes sculptural works of Russian, Soviet and foreign artists from the second half of the XVIII century to the beginning of the XXI century.

About 11,000 storage units.

The collection consists of design materials related to the planning, development and improvement of Leningrad-Petersburg, as well as projects developed by St. Petersburg architects for other cities.

Chronological framework of the collection - 1917-1990s.

... ↓

The collection began to take shape in the 1920s in the Architectural Department and the Department of Communal and Social Hygiene of the Museum of the City. The creator and first director of the museum, Lev Aleksandrovich Ilyin, was simultaneously the creator and head of the Leningrad Redevelopment Commission. The Commission itself was founded in 1923 at the Museum of the City and only in 1925 it became subordinate to the Petrograd Provincial Executive Committee. The basis of the initial collection was the materials from the archive of architectural graphics of the Urban Development Commission of the Sovkomhoz, transferred to the museum in 1923. Later, the collection was replenished with materials for the settlement of the plan of Petrograd and its outskirts (which were worked out by a group of architects under the direction of L.A.Ilyin) and materials of architectural competitions held by the Otkomkhoz (Department of Communal Services) of the Leningrad City Council. In 1938, during the reorganization of the museum, which became the Museum of the History and Development of Leningrad, a significant part of the materials was lost (decommissioned, sold out, transferred to other museums). However, the collection continued to be actively replenished by proceeds from private collections and from design organizations in Leningrad.

The collection of the fund can be divided into 5 chronological and stylistic groups.

The first one is composed of early post-revolutionary projects, most of which have not been implemented. Stylistically, most of them are connected with the search for the lapidary language of the "new classic". These include projects of the first Soviet architectural competitions in Petrograd-Leningrad, landscaping projects and the creation of urban communications networks, projects of typical buildings for various purposes.

Architectural projects of the second half of the 1920s - early 1930s reflect the avant-garde period of the development of Soviet architecture. Our museum has the most studied and probably the richest collection of architectural graphics of the Leningrad avant-garde. The same period (and partly the previous one) includes a group of materials created by the employees of the Otkomkhoz of Lensovet directly for the expositions in our museum. These objects reflect not only the history of the city and the graphics of the avant-garde era, but also that period in the history of our museum, when it served as one of the first centers in the world for the comprehensive study and design of the urban structure and environment, what we now call “urban studies”.

In the complex of materials of the 1930s and first half of the 1950s, projects of quarterly development of Moscow Avenue and the creation of a new city center, projects of public buildings such as the Udarnik House (architect N.A.Trotsky), the House of the Medical Worker (architect N.A.Miturich), competitive projects of the lighthouse monument in the Leningrad port (authors I.G.Langbard, N.A.Trotsky and others), competitive projects of the House of Soviets.

The post-war period includes projects for the restoration of old houses that were destroyed during the Great Patriotic War and large-scale, mostly low-rise, new residential construction, projects of the first stations of the Leningrad Metro. This period is fairly well and fully represented in the collection by the projects of architects L.V.Rudnev, V.A.Kamensky, K.L.Johansen, A.I.Lapirov, B.N.Zhuravlev, A.V.Zhuk, E.N.Sandler, A.K.Andreev, M.Y.Klimentov, and many others.

The era of Leningrad architectural modernism - 1960-1980s is represented quite fully in the collection. These are projects of residential buildings, public buildings, memorial complexes, layouts of blocks under construction, interior design projects. In this part of the collection it is worth noting the representative complexes of works by architects G.P.Morozov, N.M.Zakharyina, S.I.Evdokimov, I.N.Kuskov, E.M.Poltoratsky, V.N.Sherbin.

The post-Soviet period of the architecture of St.Petersburg is currently presented in the collection only by several dozen sheets. Nevertheless, this part of the collection reflects various aspects of St.Petersburg’s architecture - from residential buildings and restaurants to metro stations and memorial complexes.

Of course, the work of most architects cannot be fully integrated in a given period. Such masters as A.S.Nikolsky, N.A.Trotsky, A.I.Gegello, I.G.Langbard, A. A.Ol, S.B.Speransky, I.I.Fomin, N.A.Miturich, A.I.Lapirov, E.A.Levinson, K.L.Johansen, I.M.Tchaiko, M.A.Shepilevsky, D.P.Buryshkin, D.S.Goldgor and some others are well represented in the collection by works of different stylistic eras. ↑

The fund of replicated graphics was separated into an independent unit in 1981. The fund includes a collection of posters, playbills, programs, invitations, menus, labels and calendars. The core of the fund is formed from the collections of the Museum of Old Petersburg, City Museum and Museum of the Defense of Leningrad

About 100 000 items. The collection stores negatives covering the history of St. Petersburg of the late XIX-early XXI century.

More than 84 000 items. A rich in volume and diversity collection of art and historical sources on the history of St. Petersburg. The collection consists of two parts: photographs of pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods.

More than 44 000 items. The fund consists of original photographs of the 1850 - 2000s and photomechanical prints (collotypes, photo chromolithographs, etc.) of the 1870 – 1960s.

The books fund includes more than 45 000 items. The chronological framework of the collection: end of the XVII century - beginning of the XXI century.

Collection of the Manuscript and Documentary Fund of the museum consists of original documents of the history of St. Petersburg beginning with foundation of the city to the present day.

The collection of Vladimir Nikolaevich Orlov numbering about 12 thousand items is stored in the Museum-apartment of A.A.Blok, a branch of the State Museum of History of St. Petersburg.

The composition of the collection was determined by the interests of its donator Vladimir Nikolaevich Orlov (1908-1985) —the researcher of the life and works of A.A.Blok, the literary ... ↓ critic, the chief editor of "Poet’s Library" (1956-1970), writer, critic, one of the founders of the Museum-apartment of A.A.Blok.

V.N.Orlov was the author of several books and numerous articles about the life and work of the poet, among them — the fictionalized biography "Gamayun: the Life of Alexander Blok" (1978), "Hello, Alexander Blok" (1984), "Poem "Twelve" by A. Blok” (1962), "the Poet and the City: Alexander Blok and Petersburg" (1980). V.N.Orlov was the editor and commentator of the 8-volume edition of the collected works of A.A.Blok.

Studying the heritage of A.A.Blok, Orlov turned to the works of his contemporaries: A.Bely, K.D.Balmont, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva and to the problems of literature of the early twentieth century ("Crossroads" (1976), "Ways and Fates: Literary essays" (1971)).

Orlov’s library includes lifetime editions of Alexander Blok, including autographs of the poet; lifetime editions of his contemporaries, writers and philosophers: A.A.Akhmatova, K.D.Balmont, Andrei Bely, N.A.Berdyaev, V.Brusov, V.I.Ivanov, A.F.Losev, O.E.Mandelstam, E.L.Radlov, V.V.Rozanov, V.S.Solovyov, M.I.Tsvetaeva, V.F.Ern and many others.

The periodicals of the beginning of the twentieth century is widely represented in Orlov’s library: magazines "World of Art", "Apollo", "Libra", "New Path" and others. A significant section of the library is formed by rare editions of XVIII–XIX centuries.

About 200 sheets and canvases of artworks of the XIX–XX centuries are the most interesting part of the collection, most of them being paintings and drawings of artists of the "World of Art" — contemporaries and friends of A.A.Blok, illustrators of his works, theatrical artists.

Graphics is the main and most valuable part of Orlov’s art collection. The highlights of the collection are the profile portrait of A.A.Blok by K.K.Sokolov and double portrait "Poets. Blok and Dante" by O.D.Forsh.

Among the designs there are outstanding sheets by Y.P.Annenkov, B.D.Grigoriev, B.M.Kustodiev, M.V.Nesterov, K.S.Petrov-Vodkin, portraits of the daughter of V.A.Jünger, the works of the Leningrad graphic M.G.Nemenova.

Of special interst are the etchings of different years by the member of “World of Art” circle E.S.Kruglikova — "House of Maximilian Voloshin", "Portrait of S.V.Shervinsky, M.A.Kuzmin and E.S.Kruglikova" (both 1938) and from her famous series of silhouettes — a portrait of Konstantin Somov (1916).

The watercolor is presented with a number of signed sheets by K.S.Petrov-Vodkin (“Khvalynsk. Houses" 1931; "the Moor", 1907), M.A.Voloshin (“Koktebel”, 1925), sketches by A.N.Benoit.

Of special interest is the collection of sketches for costumes and scenery by the artists of the "World of Art": L.S.Bakst, A.N. Benoit, A.Y.Golovin, B.M.Kustodiev, K.S.Petrov-Vodkin, S.Y.Sudeykin, A.K.Shervashidze, V.I.Shukhaev.

Works of easel paintings by well-known artists O.E.Braz, B.P.Williams, K.A.Korovin, B.M.Kustodiev, E.E.Lansere, K.S.Petrov-Vodkin are in Orlov’s collection also.

In Orlov’s collection there is also the Kustodiev’s sketch for the monumental painting "Peter the Great" (1910), sketches of Petrov-Vodkin of the Paris period (1906-1908) and his "Samarkand" series (1921).

A small part of Orlov’s collection is formed by the items of medallic art (52 medals and two medallions with reliefs).

V.N.Orlov presented his library and art collection to the Museum-apartment of A.A.Blok in 1983. According to the agreement, the collection should be stored in its integrity in the Museum-apartment of Alexander Blok and be available to researchers and lovers of Blok’s poetry and poetry of the Silver age.

In 2006-2010, the Fund was enriched by items from the collection of N.P.Ilyin: the Museum received the documents, manuscripts and letters of A.A.Blok, members of his family and inner circle. ↑

More than 80 thousand items. The basic collection of the fund includes: Russian postcards printed earlier than 1917 - about 18 thousand items; Soviet postcards - more than 42 thousand items; foreign postcards - more than 21 thousand items. The chronological framework of the basic collection covers the period from the end of XIX century to the 1980s.

More than 570 000 items. Russia's largest collection of postcards on various subjects: landscapes, greetings, reproductions of works of art, personalities, banner greeting cards, etc. The chronological framework of the collection - 1880-1980's.