Museum-Panorama
“The Battle of Borodino”
The Battle of Borodino Panorama Museum is one of the key military history museums in Moscow, located at Kutuzovsky Prospekt, 38, building 1. Its main exhibit is a monumental painting measuring 115 by 15 metres, created by Franz Roubaud in 1912 for the centenary of the Patriotic War. The canvas captures the decisive moment of the battle: the midday attack of French troops on the village of Semyonovskoye on 7 September 1812. The panorama was first presented to the public in August 1912 in a wooden pavilion at Chistye Prudy, built especially for this purpose. The opening took place in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II. However, the building was temporary, quickly fell into disrepair, and was demolished in 1918. The painting itself was rolled up and stored for more than forty years in unheated warehouses, basements, and hangars; as a result, a significant part of the canvas – approximately 900 square metres out of 1,725 – was irretrievably lost. A new museum building was constructed in 1961-1962 on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, on the historic site where in September 1812 a military council was held in the hut of peasant Frolov, at which Kutuzov made the decision to abandon Moscow. The architects Korabelnikov, Kuzmin, and Kuchanov, and engineer Avrutin, created a 23-metre cylindrical volume with a glass facade, supplemented by two wings with mosaic panels. The grand opening took place on 18 October 1962. In 1967, the canvas was damaged by a fire, with about sixty percent of the painting burned. The restoration was carried out by battle painters from the Grekov Studio. Today, the museum possesses a unique collection numbering about forty thousand items from the Napoleonic Wars era, including weapons, uniforms, banners, graphics, and paintings. After restoration in 2011-2012, the exhibition was brought up to modern standards, and the panorama is once again available for viewing from a circular observation platform. The museum is an integral part of the memorial complex at Poklonnaya Hill and receives hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.
Address: Moscow, Kutuzovsky Prospekt, 38, building 1
