January 31 in Russian history

1714: When Peter I travelled in Europe, he visited Kunstkabineten, or collections of rarities, in various countries. When he came back to Russia, he organized such "cabinet of rarities", Kunstkamera, and ordered to collect various interesting things all over Russia. In 1714, when Russian capital was moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the collection was also transferred there and on January 31, it was opened in the Summer Palace. In the times of Peter I, the collection consisted mostly of exotic animals, anatomical anomalies, weapon, ethnografic rarities. The collection grew with time and in 1820s-1830s it was split into a number of museums: Ethnografic, Egyptian, Zoological, Mineralogical and others. In 1878, two of them formed the modern Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, one of the most interesting museums in St. Petersburg.