TSVETKOV IVAN ILYICH (8.11.1905 - 3.11.1975)

1960-1972 – Director of the State Museums of the Moscow Kremlin

Born into a peasant family, he moved to Leningrad in 1926, where he worked in various jobs. In 1933 he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Law and in 1934 he completed postgraduate studies at the Communist Academy. In the same year he was assigned to work in the political department of the North-West Shipping Company. From then on, he was involved in artistic and political work for over thirty years. During the Great Patriotic War he was deputy head of the political administration of the People's Commissariat of the USSR River Fleet, and from 1942 he was head of a sector in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the post-war years, he was Deputy Minister of the USSR River Fleet for Political Affairs, and from 1953 to 1955 he worked at the USSR Embassy in Beijing, China. From 1956 he was Secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR.

On 13 April 1960, following the transfer of the Armoury and Cathedral Museums from the Commandant's Office of the Moscow Kremlin to the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, he was appointed Director of the newly established State Museums of the Moscow Kremlin. He was charged with improving the structure of the institution, forming scientific departments, creating and equipping restoration workshops, restoring and developing the main types of museum activities - research, conservation, popularisation and publishing. Under his leadership, the Academic Council was reorganised and a Methodological Council was established. Scientific conferences became a regular practice, the permanent exhibition "The Museum of Applied Arts and Daily Life of the 17th Century" was opened, numerous exhibitions were organised, and the first volume of the collection "Materials and Research" was published, which became a regular scientific publication of the Museum.

In 1972, Ivan Ilyich resigned from his post as director in order to move to a personal pension of national importance.

He was awarded the Orders of Honour (1940), the Red Banner (1943), the Red Banner of Labour (1945) and eight medals, including 'For the Defence of Stalingrad', 'For the Defence of Moscow', 'For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945' and 'For Victory over Germany'.