Ratnaya Palata, Federal cultural heritage museum in Pushkin, Russia.
Ratnaya Palata is a Russian Revival building on Fermskaya Road in Pushkin, near Saint Petersburg. Its main two-storey block carries a relief of the double-headed eagle, and an octagonal three-tier tower with a tall tent roof adjoins it. The irregular polygon plan encloses an inner courtyard, and since 2014 it has housed Russia's World War I museum.
The foundation stone was laid on 3 (16) May 1913 in the presence of Nicholas II, and the complex was completed by mid-1917. It was intended as a museum of Russian military history, but from 1915 it became a museum of the ongoing war, with portraits of St George cavaliers and trophies. Renamed the People's Museum of the War of 1914–1917 in 1917, it was closed a year later and its exhibits dispersed.
The museum displays weapons, uniforms, portraits, and personal objects belonging to soldiers from the First World War, all of which visitors can observe up close. The collection gives a human face to a conflict that was rarely shown in Russia for many decades.
The building sits on Fermskaya Road in Pushkin and can be reached on foot or by public transport from Saint Petersburg. It is worth checking opening hours in advance, as they may vary by season.
The building's main hall had 400 seats and a stage for lectures, and its ceilings were painted with the coats of arms of the Russian Empire's provinces by the Moscow workshop of Nikolai Pashkov. In 1916 a captured German Albatros aircraft was put on display beside the museum.
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