"The Kremlin is associated in Europe first of all with power. We want to show that it also means the focus of history and culture," Elena Gagarina, the director of the State Culture and History Museum-Preserve "Moscow Kremlin," the daughter of the world's first cosmonaut, said at a press conference. She noted that this is the largest exhibition project of the Moscow Kremlin since its foundation, and that approximately one-third of exhibits are shown for the first time. The exhibition was prepared for over three years.
The exposition that covers eight and a half centuries includes icons (including a unique steatite icon of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica - one of the rarest and most well known), portrait paintings, jewelry, utensils and clothes, armor and arms, books and cards made mainly in Kremlin workshops or granted to Russian tsars, emperors and patriarchs.
Besides, the visitors will see "the virtual Kremlin" - a unique computer film that reproduces the creation and development of the architectural ensemble of the Kremlin - wooden, white stone and red brick. The work was fulfilled by specialists of the Technical University in Darmstadt (Germany) and the Russian State Humanitarian University.
"Gives pleasure" - these words are engraved on a hunting two-barrel rifle granted to Emperor Alexander I (ruled in 1801-1825) which is now shown in Berlin. "I think this can be an epigraph to our whole exhibition," Elena Morshakova, the Russian curator of the Moscow Kremlin exposition.
Early this year, the exhibition The Kremlin - the Glory of the Lord and Grandeur of Tsars was shown for three and a half months in Bonn, where some 165,000 people visited it.
The Berlin exhibition will be open until September 13.
