New Exhibition: "Royal Departure" in Moscow

MOSCOW, 22 February -- The Special Purpose Garage of the FSO has opened its latest exhibition. Titled "Royal Departure", it allows you to make a fascinating and informative journey into the past of Russia.

Here are excerpts from the official press release: "On February 18, 1907, Emperor Nicholas II issued a decree to create His Imperial Majesty's Own Garage. Through the prism of this event, as well as the further formation and development of the Imperial Garage, the exhibition reveals details about the little-known period of motoring in our country - the pre-revolutionary period. The first cars, the first exhibitions, the first races, the first victories - all this happened in Russia before 1917, but later it was as if deliberately forgotten, if not completely cut off from the historical narrative, as a rule, starting with the first years of Soviet power.
In Tsarist Russia, the main motorist was the autocrat Nicholas II, who adored his "motors" and travels with them. The sovereign even came up with a word for this action - “motorized”. Founded in 1907, His Imperial Majesty's Own garage eventually became the largest among the garages of European monarchs, but subsequent historical upheavals did not allow any of the royal "motors" to survive to this day.
Little remains of that time: a few surviving cars, some random details, accessories and souvenirs, and newsreel photographs. But all these artifacts, brought together in one room, bring back, it would seem, an era that has gone forever.
The start of the race for the Imperial Prize, the first Russian Automobile Salons, Nicholas II's trips around the country, the assembly shop of the Russo-Baltique Plant, the everyday life of an automobile company at the front - a suite of historical scenes will step by step guide the visitor through the great and tragic history of the last decade of the Russian Empire. Huge full-color photo panels, luxurious royal cars, authentic items of palace life, historical costumes and previously unpublished documents help to feel the atmosphere of a bygone gallant era.
Among the premieres of the exhibition is the Gardner-Serpollet Type D steam car, allegedly owned by the Minister of the Imperial Court, Baron Frederiks, who, back in 1901, tried to captivate Emperor Nicholas II with this technical novelty.
The cars and motorcycles Russo-Baltique, Benz, Berliet, De Dion-Bouton, Indian, Hispano-Suiza, Renault, Rolls-Royce, Studebaker, and White presented at the exhibition are among the well-known and even popular brands in pre-revolutionary Russia. Exhibits for this amazing exhibition were provided by more than thirty museums and private collections, both domestic and foreign. Despite the uniqueness of historical artifacts, you can take pictures here.
In addition to the surviving rarities, the exhibition presents the project “Russo-Balt. Revival of a legend”, dedicated to the reconstruction of the famous domestic cars “Russo-Balt” using original drawings and technologies of that time.
Specially for the exhibition, a photo album "Tsar's Departure" was published, containing more than 100 rare and unique photographs of the cars of Emperor Nicholas II and representatives of the Romanov dynasty. Many of the photographs that you will find in this luxuriously published book are taken from the collections of Russian and foreign museums, archives and private collections for the first time.