For the first time, the exhibition held in the Assumption Belfry and the One-Pillar Chamber of the Patriarch’s Palace of the Moscow Kremlin is dedicated to one of the greatest figures in Russian history – Boris Godunov. He was a man of marked individuality, whose amazing and tragic life has been attracting historians and litterateurs for a long time. The sovereign’s image is depicted in various works of art, music and drama.

Around 150 items dating back to the turn of the 17th century are provided by Russian leading museums – the State Tretyakov Gallery, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, State Hermitage Museum, State Historical Museum etc, as well as by the largest libraries and the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents.

The exhibition highlights the milestones in Boris Godunov’s life, stages of his state activity and the most important aspects of his foreign policy, as well as familiarizes visitors with rich cultural heritage of the Godunov epoch.

The display includes masterpieces of icon painting, book miniature, pictorial and decorative embroidery, jeweller’s art and and art of gunsmithing, which form the golden fund of Russian art. Many of these remarkable exhibits were made by the order of Boris Godunov and his relatives. Distinguished by the skillful execution and splendour of décor, they verify a particular artistic taste in art of the representatives of the family, which added its own page to the history of the Medieval Russian culture. The exhibition also presents items of significant importance, such as manuscripts, rare books and memoirs of witnesses of the events of that time. The core of the exhibition is formed from the collection of the Moscow Kremlin Museums – the Monomach’s Cap and the throne of Boris Godunov.

Extant monuments of the Godunov epoch form a complete layer of an artistic heritage of the Muscovy and characterize that historical period as the flourishing time of traditional fine arts tendencies, brought to perfection by a virtuoso performance.