Russian Diamond Fund Kremlin — The Armoury Repository
Russian Diamond Fund Kremlin — The Armoury Repository
The Kremlin location and museum context of the State Diamond Fund
The Russian Diamond Fund is housed inside the Moscow Kremlin Armoury (Oruzheynaya Palata), and the qualifier Kremlin in trade and museum reference distinguishes it from the broader Almazny Fond holdings administered by Gokhran across other facilities. Although the legal entity is the State Diamond Fund of the Russian Federation under the Ministry of Finance, the publicly accessible exhibition and the historic regalia are held inside the Armoury complex on the south side of the Kremlin grounds, alongside the wider Kremlin Museums collection of Tsar's-period treasures.
The Armoury context
The Moscow Kremlin Armoury was founded as a court arsenal in the early sixteenth century and developed through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into a working royal workshop and treasury. The current building, designed by Konstantin Thon and completed in 1851, holds the regalia, ceremonial weapons, royal carriages, vestments, and the Imperial silver and goldwork of the Tsar's court. The Diamond Fund occupies a dedicated, separately ticketed exhibition space within the Armoury complex.
The Armoury and the Diamond Fund share a curatorial mission: preservation and public exhibition of Russian state treasures. Operationally, the Fund is administered by Gokhran and the Armoury by the Moscow Kremlin Museums, but the visitor experience is integrated.
The principal historic stones
The Orlov diamond — approximately 189.62 carats, Indian in origin, set in the Imperial Sceptre — is the centrepiece of the collection. Its high rose-cut form is characteristic of pre-1700 Indian cutting. The stone reached Russia in 1774, purchased in Amsterdam by Count Grigory Orlov as a gift to Catherine the Great in an attempt to recover her favour.
The Shah diamond — approximately 88.7 carats, yellow-brown, inscribed in Persian script with the names of three historic owners — is a Mughal-era stone presented to Tsar Nicholas I in 1829 as Persian indemnity for the death of Russian diplomat Alexander Griboyedov. The inscriptions make the Shah one of the most thoroughly documented major historic diamonds.
The Imperial Crown of 1762, by Pauzié, sits at the centre of the regalia exhibition. The crown is set with 4,936 diamonds totalling 2,858 carats, surmounted by a 398.72-carat red spinel of Burmese origin. The Imperial Orb (1762) holds a major Sri Lankan sapphire of approximately 200 carats; the Imperial Sceptre holds the Orlov.
The Small Imperial Crown of 1801, several Imperial diadems including the Russian Beauty kokoshnik diadem, and the Imperial parures of sapphire, emerald, and ruby round out the regalia exhibition.
Modern Soviet and Russian additions
Diamonds from Yakutian production reserved from commercial sale are displayed in a separate exhibition section. The collection includes the Star of Yakutia (232.10 carats rough), the XXVI Congress of CPSU diamond (342.5 carats rough), and a series of major modern Russian rough and cut stones. Soviet-era cutting from the Smolensk Kristall enterprise is represented by named cut stones used as Russian-cut benchmarks. Gold and platinum nuggets from Imperial and Soviet production complete the holdings, with the 36-kilogram Big Triangle nugget (1842) the largest single piece.
Visiting the exhibition
Access requires a separate timed-entry ticket purchased in advance through the Moscow Kremlin Museums system. The exhibition is small in floor area and capacity is limited; tours run on the half-hour. Photography is prohibited; security screening is comparable to airport standards. The Diamond Fund is generally closed on Thursdays. International visitors should consult the current Moscow Kremlin Museums website for visiting status, which has varied with diplomatic and security conditions.
Other Gokhran holdings
The Diamond Fund Kremlin exhibition is the public face of a much larger Gokhran reserve. Gokhran holds the Russian Federation's strategic precious-metal and precious-stone reserves at multiple secured facilities, of which only the Kremlin exhibition is publicly accessible. The strategic reserve includes commercial-grade rough diamonds from Yakutia held against future market conditions, and is not part of the museum holdings.
Comparable institutions
The Russian Diamond Fund Kremlin sits alongside the Tower of London Crown Jewels, the Louvre's regalia and Apollo Gallery, the Topkapi Palace treasury in Istanbul, and the Iranian National Jewelry Treasury in Tehran as the major sovereign gemstone exhibitions of the world. Among these, the Kremlin holdings are particularly strong in late-Imperial diamond regalia and in the modern Soviet and Russian Yakutian production that no other sovereign collection holds.