Central Armed Forces Museum

The Central Armed Forces Museum (Russian: Центральный Музей Вооруженных сил) also known as the Museum of the Soviet Army, is located in northern Moscow, Russia, near the Red Army Theater.

The first exposition which showed the military condition of the Soviet Republic and the Red Army was organised in Moscow in the building of today's State Universal Store, and was opened by Vladimir Lenin on the 25 May 1919, following a parade in Red Square.

On 23 December 1919 an order was issued on the formation of a museum-exposition "Life of the Red Army and Fleet" in the same location, whose purpose was to Inform the public about the achievements by post-October Revolution Soviet Russia in military education, culture and political discipline in the Red Army and Navy.

In 1920 another exhibition was organised and dedicated to the 11th congress of Comintern in Moscow about the life and deeds of the Soviet Republic and its young armed forces which defend the conquests of the proletariat. More than 150,000 people visited the exhibition. In 1921 the exposition was transformed into the Museum of the Red Army and Fleet, and it was moved to Vozdvizhenka 6 in 1922, into a building (demolished in the 1930s), opposite today's Russian State Library.

The largest events in the museum's first years was the fifth anniversary exposition for the creation of the Worker-Peasant Red Army (RKKA) between 23 February and 1 November 1923 which was visited by 500 groups and 70,000 individuals. In 1924, following the opening of similar museums across the country, it was renamed the Central museum of the Red Army and Fleet. It moved to the left wing of the Central House of the Red Army on the Yekaterinvskaya (now Suvorova), in 1928. In 1951 the museum was once again renamed the Central Museum of the Soviet Army and in 1965 moved to its present location in a new, special building designed by architects N. Gaygarova and V. Barkhin. It was renamed once again the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the USSR; it was given its present name in 1993.

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