Museums
THE ARCHBISHOP'S (FACETED) CHAMBER
The Archbishop's (Faceted) Chamber is all that remained of the former Archbishop's residence. Its condition is typical for a
medieval building which has undergone many changes of looks and purpose. Today it does not look very special - a rather plain small building. However, if we imagine removing 3 meters of the cultural layer and added in the 19th c. vestibule, and then putting back in place pairs of lancet windows and perspective arched portals - then we would see a building most uncommon for ancient Russian architecture. This follows from the fact that the Chamber was built to the order of Evfimiy II by Russian and German architects together.
From the 16th to the 19th c. the Faceted Chamber was used as a church. Today it hosts permanent exposition of ancient Russian decorative, applied and jewelry arts, and the nearby Ioann's corpus is occupied by an exposition of ancient Russian embroidery of the 11th—17th cc. Both are open daily, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in summer and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in winter, except Wednesday and last Friday of a month.
HISTORICAL MUSEUM
In the lower part of the building survived arched basement rooms of the 16th c. — the remains of the major administrative building in Novgorod of the 16th—17th cc. It was damaged during the 1686 fire when the entire southern part of the Kremlin burned down.
The contemporary structure and looks of the building formed in the early 19th c., in the classicism epoch. It became rather grand in a solemn way, with its cast iron lions guarding the central of the three entrances.
In the 19th c. there was a cobble-stone square between the Offices and St. Sophia cathedral. That was where parades and other festivities took place, and here in 1862 was erected the Monument to the Millennium of Russia — the symbol of the ancient Russia meeting the new one.
Today the right half of the building of the former Offices hosts the main historical expositions of the museum, including «History of Novgorod Land» and «Ancient Russian icons». They are open daily, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Tuesday and the last Thursday of a month
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
The Museum of Fine Arts contains a collection of Russian paintings of the 18th-20th cc.
The collection started forming right after the 1917 revolution. Many paintings, among them works by Rokotov and Kiprensky, were confiscated, restored and turned to the museum.
The decision about founding a Painting Gallery in Novgorod was followed by the act of giving the museum works from the Central museum repository, the closed museum of the former Emperor's Academy of Arts and the palaces in and around Saint-Petersburg. Also, after the closure of well-known country estates of Vybiti, Marjino, and Gruzino, their contents re-stocked the collection of Novgorod Museum of Old and New Arts. This way all major artworks of the academic and innovation trends appeared in the collection.
Today there are over 6 thousand items in the funds of the Museum of Fine Arts, most of them paintings and graphics. The exposition presents works by such well-known Russian artists as Borovikovsky, Kramskoy, Brullov, Vrubel, Serov, Repin, Benua, and others. There are also paintings and graphics by such well-known contemporary Novgorodian artists as Zhuravlyov, Nepomnyaschiy, and Varentsov.
The interesting and valuable feature of the collection is that it offers a look over a wide range of all major trends and styles, from «Russian classique» to modern.
The Museum of Fine arts is situated in the building of the former Noblemen's Assembly, on the Sophiyskaya square. It is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, except Monday and the first Thursday of a month.
