The Moscow Kremlin Museums participate in the international project “A Place at the Royal Table” which coincides with the Year of European Cultural Heritage. The museums from twelve countries – members of the European Royal Residences Network, such as Schönbrunn Palace (Austria), Château of Chambord (France), Palaces of Versailles and Trianon (France), Historic Royal Palaces (United Kingdom), Parques de Sintra - Monte da Lua (Portugal), Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów (Poland), Prince’s Palace of Monaco (Monaco), Royal Palace of Caserta (Italy), Peterhof State Museum-Reserve (Russia) and others are joining together to share their history.
The Instagram photo contest dedicated to architectural ensembles of the Royal residences has become the first event in this project. In the frame of the contest that lasts till 23 August 2018, the Moscow Kremlin Museums, as well as the other members of the Network, invite their subscribers to publish their photos taken on the sites of the Residence Museums, using the hashtag #EuropeanRoyalPalaces.
The Moscow Kremlin Museums also intend to launch two podcasts about royal feasts in the 16th-17th centuries and also hold series of lectures and publish two books.
The audience of the podcasts will learn what feasters ate and drank, how they dressed for dinner, and what the etiquette and hierarchy were. Podcasts will be available on the largest online platforms (iTunes, YouTube: Chapter 1, Chapter 2) in two languages (Russian and English), as well as in social networks of the Museum and on other online platforms.
The project includes the #PalaceDay online event dedicated to ceremonial feasts of the sovereigns. It will be launched on 19 July 2018 in social networks Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. The Kremlin Museums will make series of publications about tsars and imperial feasts just for the #PalaceDay event.
Series of lectures “Everyday Life of the Russian Tsars: Solemn Ceremonies and Domestic Life” is to familiarize the audience with an amazing world of the Tsar’s court of the 16th-17th centuries. Lecturers will tell about the rites of anointment and crowning, receptions held for foreign ambassadors and about tsar’s feasts—the main ceremonies of the Royal court in Moscow. Guests will discover the details that were hidden from view — how the wedding feast was carried out in the Faceted Chamber and who was invited by tsarina to the Tsarina’s Golden Chamber. The program is completed by the tour of the Armoury Chamber. The second lecture programme will transfer audience into the times of balls, masquerades and ceremonial dinners at the Russian Imperial court of the 18th-19th centuries. Guests will learn about balls held during the reign of Empress Elizabeth (Elizaveta Petrovna) and about masquerades of Emperor Nicholas I’s epoch. Coronation dinner menus preserved in the archives, gala dinnerware sets commissioned by the Russian emperors and now being part of the collection of the Armoury Chamber will tell about nineteenth-century banquets.
Books published by the Moscow Kremlin Museums, are being printed right in time for this international event, explore royal weddings and court festivals that took place at the Moscow Kremlin, from Peter the Great’s time and till Nicholas II’s reign. One of the two books – “Russian Royal Wedding in the 16th-17th Centuries” is dedicated to wedding rites of Russian grand princes and tsars. The wedding was one of the most significant events in the sovereign’s life, closely connected with the destiny of the whole state. Each preparation step was of great importance. Another book “Royal Festivals at the Moscow Kremlin in the 18th – beginning of the 20th Century: From Peter I to Nicholas II” will show changes in the Russian court life, as well as portray novelties used in interior design and preparations of festivals. This edition contains many interesting stories both historical and cultural, as well as reveals secrets of the technical arrangement of spectacles of that time, i.e. fireworks, decorative lighting and illuminations, unknown to most present-day readers.
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