Moscow museums · History
History · since 1806
The Armoury Chamber
The Armoury Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin
A treasury formed by keeping rather than by collecting: things entered as the sovereign’s property or as an embassy gift, and so came through where in Europe they went to the crucible. English silver of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries stands here more fully than in England itself — the royal plate at home was melted under the Commonwealth, while what had been sent to Moscow was never touched. Neither the Tower nor the Victoria and Albert can be as complete about that English century as this room in Moscow. There is no painting here at all: this is a chamber of objects.
Minimum route
1.5–2 hours
Founded
1806
Today
10:00–18:00
What to see
The Cap of Monomakh and the double throne of the boy tsars Ivan and Peter. Tudor and Stuart silver, a holding with no equal anywhere. Fabergé Easter eggs. Icon covers, panagias and chalices of pre-Mongol Rus. The carriage rooms: coronation coaches of the eighteenth century.
Minimum route — 1.5–2 hours for the essentials
An hour and a half — exactly one timed slot.
- 25 minutesthe halls of Russian gold and silver: icon covers, chalices and panagias of the twelfth to seventeenth centuries.
- 25 minutesEuropean silver, and within it the English shelf that brings specialists here.
- 20 minutesarms and armour, ceremonial and diplomatic.
- 20 minutesregalia, thrones, coronation dress. Downstairs,
- 15 minutesthe carriages.
Reference
About the museum
The oldest museum in Russia. As the treasury of the tsars the Armoury is known from the sixteenth century; it became a museum in 1806 by decree of Alexander I. The present building was raised by Konstantin Ton in 1851, hard against the Great Kremlin Palace.
The building
Ton’s building of 1851 belongs to the palace rather than to itself: the enfilade says so, and so does the fact that its windows look into the inner court.
Good to know
The Kremlin ticket and the Armoury ticket are separate, and the queue may come twice. The ticket is tied to an hour: miss it and it is gone. The Diamond Fund, shown in the same building, belongs not to the Kremlin Museums but to the state depository — another ticket and another desk.
What to read
Charles Oman, “The English Silver in the Kremlin, 1557–1663” — the standard account of the one holding here that England can no longer show at home. London: Methuen, 1961.
Getting in
Addresschecked 16 August 2026, the museum website
How to get there
Metro Biblioteka imeni Lenina, Aleksandrovsky Sad, Borovitskaya or Arbatskaya. There is one way into the Kremlin, through the Kutafya Tower by the Alexander Garden, and from there across the Trinity Bridge.
Opening timeschecked 16 August 2026, the museum website
closed for the day
| Mon–Wed, Fri–Sun today | 10:00–18:00 |
| Thu | closed |
Closed on Thursdays. Entry is by timed slot and the ticket names the hour. Summer and winter hours differ — check the museum site.
When to go
The first slot of the day. By noon the halls are tight and the cases are low; behind other people’s shoulders nothing can be seen, and the hour and a half goes on queueing at the glass.
Contacts
kreml.ru · +7 495 695-41-46
Of interest to children
The cases are low, the objects small, and the telling is not optional. From 8, and better with a guide; younger children will not stand an hour and a half at the glass.
· No. 59