Valuev Peter Stepanovich (1743-1814)
1801-1814 – Head of the Kremlin Buildings Construction and Maintenance Department, Head of the Workshop and the Armoury Chamber 

Peter Stepanovich Valuev was born on 29 June 1743. He came from a poor but old noble family, known since the 13th century. In 1752, at the age of nine, Peter Valuyev was admitted to the army cadet corps, which prepared children of the nobility for both military and civil service, and provided them with an excellent education for the time. In 1759 he began to serve at the court: with the rank of non-commissioned officer, he was an aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke Peter Fyodorovich. On the day of Peter III's accession to the throne, 25 December 1761, he was promoted to warrant officer. However, the new emperor’s reign was very short. After Catherine II came to power, many of Peter III's trusted were removed from the court. In 1763, Valuyev was sent to Warsaw as a nobleman of the embassy with the rank of lieutenant and carried out various missions in Poland "both military and political". From 1769 to 1771 P.S. Valuyev took part in military operations of the Russian fleet against Turkey and was promoted to the rank of captain.

In 1772 Valuyev was promoted to kammerjunker and returned to the court administration. Undoubtedly, Peter Stepanovich's career was facilitated by his marriage, in the same year of 1772, to Daria, the daughter of State Councillor A. R. Koshelev, who had great family connections at court. Family life of P. С. Valuyev was successful, he had four sons and five daughters with Daria Alexandrovna. The service at the court of Catherine II developed quite successfully, especially after her trip to the south, when Valuyev's organisational skills were noticed and approved by the empress. In 1779 he was promoted to chamberlain, in 1791 he was promoted to privy councillor and in 1793 to chief master of ceremonies. At the beginning of the reign of Paul I, who favoured those who served his father, Valuyev continued to serve at court, receiving new decorations and ranks. In 1796, as the chief master of ceremonies, he took part in organising the coronation and reburial of Peter III, and then the coronation of Paul I, for which he received a thousand peasant souls and the title of senator. In 1798 Peter Stepanovich was promoted to the rank of Privy Counsellor. A brilliant career and a successful marriage gave rise to many envious and malicious people. Valuyev's strict pedantry and sharpness of expression also seem to have contributed to this. Peter Stepanovich soon fell from grace. In September 1800 he was dismissed from the service and removed from St Petersburg, but immediately after the accession of Alexander I in 1801 he was appointed Head of the Kremlin Buildings Construction and Maintenance Department.

At the time of Valuyev's appointment, the department was responsible for the construction, repair and maintenance of buildings in the Kremlin, as well as all palace property in Moscow and the Moscow suburbs. It was a huge and very poorly managed operation. Within a short period of time, Valuyev developed and, with the sanction of the tsar, implemented new principles of administrative management of the department, changed its structure and stuff, as well as the system of financing. The measures proposed by the Director formed the basis of the Edict of His Imperial Majesty of 10 March 1806. "On the Rules of Management and Preservation of the Valuables in Order and Integrity in the Workshop and the Armoury Chamber", according to which the Workshop and the Armoury Chamber received the status of a museum. The construction of a special building, the Chamber, was one of the most important factors in the transformation of the ancient treasury into a museum. On 21 March 1805, Emperor Alexander I signed a document authorising the construction of a new building for the storage of treasures, which was completed in 1810. In 1807, on the initiative of P.S. Valuyev, the "Historical Description of the Old Russian Museum, called the Workshop and the Armoury Chamber, located in Moscow" was released, which was the first publication of the state regalia.

The creation of a consolidated, complete and systematic inventory of the museum collection was the most important event in the first decade of the museum's activity. In 1810, when the work on the construction and decoration of the new building of the Armoury Chamber was coming to an end, the museum workers made preparations for the creation of the first exposition. One of the most important tasks set by Valuyev in the organisation of the museum was the collection of objects "earlier removed" from the Chamber. P.S. Valuyev's persistent requests for the return of certain objects from His Imperial Majesty's Study led to the fact that on 21 September 1809 Alexander I ordered that the relics from the Rustkammer, which was attached to the Cabinet, as well as objects from Peter the Great's collection, be transferred to the Workshop and the Armoury Chamber for storage.

The documents from 1808 to 1810 contain many references to objects being donated to the museum by individuals from different estates - from Prince Dolgorukov to peasants who found a helmet in the forest. However, the Emperor had strict selection criteria and gave his consent to their inclusion in the museum's collection, so not all gifts were accepted into the Kremlin treasury. Plans for the first exposition of the new museum were interrupted by the war that began in 1812. Hasty preparations for the evacuation began in August, a few weeks before the Battle of Borodino. The work was supervised by P. С. Valuev. The museum staff managed to pack the valuables and secretly transport them to Nizhny Novgorod by the time Napoleon's troops entered Moscow. From there, in spring 1813, they were sent via Vladimir to Moscow, where they arrived safely that summer. On their return to the Kremlin, the process of unpacking and organising began and lasted until the end of 1814.

On 4 June 1814 Peter Stepanovich Valuyev died. He was 71 years old. The war and the death of his son had undermined his health. Remembering Valuyev, Sergei Glinka wrote in his memoirs: "Deep sorrow for Moscow cost many a life". After the death of P.S. Valuyev a new stage in the life of the museum began. Under his leadership, the ancient treasury of the Moscow tsars was transformed into a museum with the most up-to-date accounting documentation and a new building specially built for it. The scientific study and publication of the collections began, the Museum's funds were considerably enriched and the creation of a professional team of employees was in progress. The successful work of the Workshop and the Armoury Chamber was facilitated, among other things, by Peter Stepanovich's ability to appreciate his employees. The documents were full of his reports with requests to reward his employees with financial rewards, orders and promotions. The museum has a valuable testimony of gratitude of the staff of the Armoury Chamber to P.S. Valuyev - a silver goblet decorated with allegorical figures, presented to him in 1809. The lid of the goblet is crowned with the image of a pelican sitting on a nest and feeding its nestlings - a symbol of self-sacrifice and parental love. The goblet returned to the walls of the Chamber in accordance with Valuyev's will. 

DECORATIONS:
Order of St Anne, 1st class
Order of St Alexander Nevsky
Order of St Vladimir, 1st class