The Imperial Crown of Russia is the crown that was used to crown Emperors of Russia until the abolition of the monarchy in 1917. The imperial crown was first used by Emperor Peter I of Russia and last used in 1896 to crown Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. It is currently on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury.

Background

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In 1719, Emperor Peter I "the Great" founded the earliest version of what we now know as the State Diamond Fund of the Russian Federation. The crown replaced the Monomakh's Cap used by earlier Russian Tsars and Grand Princes of Muscovy, as a symbol of the adoption of the title of Emperor.

Peter I had visited other European nations, and introduced many innovations to Russia, one of which was the creation of a permanent fund to house a collection of jewels which belonged not to the Romanov family, but to the Russian State.

Manufacture

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The Great Imperial Crown made in 1762 for the coronation of Catherine the Great by the court jeweller, J.Pauzie, represents the beauty and skilled workmanship. It is adorned with five thousand diamonds arranged in a splendid pattern of laurel wreaths and oak branches (some Russian sources state this number as 4,836) with a number of fine, large white pearls. The crown is also decorated with one of the seven historic stones of the Russia's Diamond Collection - a large precious red spinel weighing 398.72 carats (79.744 g) which was brought to Russia by Nicholas Spafary, the Russian envoy to China from 1675 to 1678.

The spinel is in turn surmounted by a jeweled Cross, representing the Christian Faith of the Sovereign, the God-given power of the monarchy and also the supremacy of the Divine order over earthly power.

The glitter of the diamonds is enhanced by two rows of gleaming pearls and the crown is topped by a huge red spinel, the second largest in the world, which weighs almost 400 carats (80 g).

Coronation

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Following the tradition of the Byzantine Emperors, the Emperor of Russia placed the crown on his own head. This left no doubt that, in the Russian system, the imperial power came directly from God. The prayer of the metropolitan, similar to that of the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Byzantine Emperor, confirmed the imperial supremacy.

After the emperor recited the Nicene Creed as a profession of faith, and after an invocation of the Holy Ghost and litany, the emperor assumed the purple chlamys and the crown was then presented to him.

He would take it and place it on his head himself, while the metropolitan recited:

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen."

The metropolitan would then make the following short address:

"Most God-fearing, absolute and mighty Lord, Emperor of all the Russias, this visible and tangible adornment of thy head is an eloquent symbol that thou as the head of the whole Russian people art invisibly crowned by the King of kings, Christ, with a most ample blessing, seeing that He bestows upon thee entire authority over His people."

Time in Ireland

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Following the October Revolution the new Russian Republic, which was seriously low on funds, sought a loan from the Irish Republic, whose finance minister, Michael Collins, had become internationally famous for his fundraising for the unofficial Irish state. The Russian Crown Jewels were therefore sent to Ireland to be used as collateral in the loan. The jewels were placed in a safe in Government Buildings and promptly forgotten about until their rediscovery in the 1940s. They were then returned to Moscow.

History of Russia | Crowns | Russian clothing | Visitor attractions in Moscow | Russian monarchy | Руска императорска корона