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- Opening Hours
- Getting Here
- Admission and Tickets
- Exhibitions
- Virtual 3D Tour
- Kunstkamera Mobile Guide
- History of the Kunstkamera
- The Kunstkamera: all knowledge of the world in one building
- Establishment of the Kunstkamera in 1714
- The Kunstkamera as part of the Academy of Sciences
- The Kunstkamera building
- First collections
- Peter the Great's trips to Europe
- Acquisition of collections in Europe: Frederik Ruysch, Albert Seba, Joseph-Guichard Duverney
- The Gottorp (Great Academic) globe
- Siberian expedition of Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt
- The Academic detachment of the second Kamchatka expedition (1733-1743)
- 1747 fire in the Kunstkamera
- Fr.-L. Jeallatscbitsch trip to China with a mission of the Academy of Sciences (1753-1756)
- Siberian collections
- Academy of Sciences' expeditions for geographical and economic exploration of Russia (1768-1774)
- Research in the Pacific
- James Cook's collections
- Early Japanese collections
- Russian circumnavigations of the world and collections of the Kunstkamera
- Kunstkamera superintendents
- Explore Collections Online
- Filming and Images Requests FAQs
Gottorp (Greater Academic) Globe
The Gottorp (Greater Academic) Globe is on display at our museum. One of the first planetariums in the world, it is unique in its size and construction, allowing an external globe with a map of the earth’s surface and an internal planetarium with a map of the starry sky to rotate simultaneously.
The globe was made in 1654-1664 under the supervision of A. Olearius in Gottorp, the resident of the Duke of Holstein. The planetarium globe of 3.1 meters in diameter was given to Peter the Great during the Northern War and brought to Petersburg in 1717. Initially, it was placed in a special pavilion on the Tsaristin meadow (now the Field of Mars). It is known that the Tsar frequently examined the Gottorp globe in the morning, such was the interest he took in it.
In 1717, the globe was moved to the tower of the Kunstkamera building. It was severely damaged in the fire of 1747, and its surface was destroyed. Thanks to the work of 18th-century Russian craftsmen, modern restorers, researchers and curators, visitors to the museum today can share the pride and amazement which this unique globe evoked among the people of past centuries.
