The Central Naval Museum was founded in January 1709 as a Model Chamber of Saint Petersburg Admiralty. The main goal of the Model Chamber creation was to keep drawings, transport and warships draughts and models. In 1805 a Maritime Museum, where engravings and pictures on marine themes were collected, was created. In 1827 the Museum was closed. Almost forty years later the Maritime Museum was recreated. Its collection was enriched by many valuable objects. In 1909 the Museum was renamed as Emperor Peter the Great's Maritime Museum. In 1939 the Central Naval Museum was transferred to a building of former Stock exchange at the spit of Vasilyevsky island.

 
Collection of the Museum totals more than 700 000 items today. The museum has one of the richest collections of ships' models in the world. Most valuable of them are the following - model of an English 100-gun ship "Royal Sovereign", offered by English Queen Anna to Peter the Great (1695), model of a Maltese galley (1568), model of a frigate made by Peter the Great.