Wednesday 31 July 2019

Army Museum and Victory Park, Moscow

Just returned from a visit to Moscow, where I had the chance to visit the Red Army Museum (which has been known as the Central Armed Forces Museum for the past 25 years or so), as well as Victory Park, which has a big outdoor display of WWII vehicles.

Most of the photos are self-explanatory.  My camera isn't that great, so I'm not including most of the blurry photos that I took inside the museum!

This first photo isn't from the museum, but from an ordinary building on an ordinary street.  Memorials like this are to be found everywhere in Moscow.


Entrance to the Central Armed Forces Museum


T-34 as a gate guard!

Grenadier from the time of Peter the Great



Cuirassier helmet and cuirass from the Patriotic War of 1812




 Modern painting of revolutionary heroes (Trotsky has not been removed!)



I tried to take photos of the propaganda posters, but they mostly turned out like this!  (these are German posters from the time of the revolution).  I'm disappointed, I really liked the propaganda!




 Tachanka with T-18 tank in background (a Russian copy of the Renault FT-17)




WWII poster!  The enemy will not pass!


The museum's patron!  2019 is the centennial of when Lenin originally directed the construction of this museum.




Spoils of war - there are several cases of iron crosses here.  This may not be where iron crosses grow, but certainly where they've been sown!



Recreation of the 1945 Victory Parade with flats, featuring Zhukov on his white horse.




Vehicle park outside the museum


BA-64 armoured car.  I was struck by how tiny it is (I should have found someone to stand beside it for scale, as well as for pretty much every other vehicle in these photos!)


BMP-1 


T-26


 T-35

T-28

 T-34


KV-1


KV-2


IS-2


 T-55


The following are all from Victory Park, starting with this P-38(t)



Battle damaged German tank



Panzer IV F


T-34 in the trees


Recreation of a bunker


And of trench works




This tank isn't just hull down, it has no tracks or running gear!


Big railway gun


T-34



KV-1


T-34

And the KV-1 again!


AT gun

I have some more photos from Victory Park, but won't post them; mostly aircraft, boats and Japanese tanks.  Sometime this weekend, I'll do another blog post with photos of statues and memorials.