An unprecedented clock and watch show starts at the Kremlin Armory

09 july 2006

MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti) - The Armory of the Moscow Kremlin State History and Culture Museum Preserve is hosting an exposition, History in Time. Opened Thursday, July 6, it exhibits watchmakers' masterpieces. Coming as tribute to one of the most valuable human inventions, the show is timed to the 160th establishment anniversary of the Swiss-based Ulysse Nardin manufactory.

Mechanical clocks and watches are presently of cultural value, most of all. When they appeared, however, they made a tremendous impact on human progress thanks to their utilitarian value.

A modest everyday appliance, the mechanical watch was among the tools without which the development of medicine, technology, transport, the economy and sports would have been inconceivable throughout centuries.

'It took several years to make this collection, gathered from many museums in every part of the world, and from private connoisseurs. It is, for today, the largest-ever watch and clock collection brought to Russia from abroad,' Rolf W. Schnyder, Ulysse Nardin President, said at the opening gala.

Certain masterpieces - each a watch-making landmark - have never before appeared on display, added Yury Yakovlev, MTT Company CEO and exposition co-organizer.

The History in Time offers exclusive exhibits alongside other rarities, in particular, the first chronographers, of precision thitherto unmatched, with one-tenth of the second indicated on the face, or Mikhail Bronnikov's famous Wooden Clock. Perhaps, the most unusual clock throughout history, it is entirely made of wood, down to the smallest part. Giovanni de Dondi's Astrarium, the oldest of known astronomic clocks, and the renowned Leroy Clock, the world's first to contain a portable planetarium, are also exhibited in the Kremlin.