Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu: Mr President, you approved the construction of the Armed Forces’ Main Cathedral, and now we are presenting a large project for a major museum of the Armed Forces.
Of course, we have one in Moscow. We are building this one so that some 740,000 items that are in storage at various museums could be…
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Exhibited.
Sergei Shoigu: Exhibited for our people, for our compatriots to see.
This building will be unique because we plan to establish something like a historical theatre in each wing, for example, the Battle of Borodino here.
There will be artifacts, redoubts, weapons, cannons, uniforms and flags: everything that we keep in storage today will be presented. We have 43,000 items of small arms from different wars alone.
This is why we would like to ask you to support this initiative. It would be the largest museum: almost 150,000 square metres.
Vladimir Putin: What a beautiful model. Is this a star?
Sergei Shoigu: Yes, Mr President, stars. These stars will overlap each other, and of course, here they will be presented at different levels.
In addition to this, there will not be just a passage here but also a weapons exhibition. We show this simply to see the scale of the building. And, of course, here we have heavy equipment, aircraft, and many other things, like we did next to the Main Cathedral of the Armed Forces: we have a similar battle installation there.
And here, the exhibition will change, for example, once a season or every six months. For example, the Battle of Stalingrad here and the Defence of Brest Fortress there.
In order to do this, we will set up workshops that will change the exhibits every six months, and people will visit and say like in a theatre: tonight, there will be this show. Not even a show, but an exhibition of historical events of the time, such as World War I, or the Battle of Kulikovo, or many other events.
Vladimir Putin: A live museum.
Sergei Shoigu: Yes, Mr President, a live museum.