From the second half of the 17th century, as the Russians began exploring new territories, they encountered the peoples of the Extreme Northeast of Asia, who had a well-developed warfare. Ethnographers and historians of the 19th and 20th centuries studied in detail their armament, defensive structures, military organization, education and training of warriors, as well as tactics of warfare.
The exhibition presents a reconstruction of the armament of Kamchatka’s indigenous inhabitants of the 17th–18th centuries. It was made by the artist and painter Vladimir Ivanovich Zorin, based on scientific research by Valentina Viktorovna Antropova and Vladimir Ilyich Iokhelson. The reconstruction mainly depicts the armament of the Koryak and Chukchi people.
The experts have determined that the armament consisted mainly of bows and arrows, spears and knives. The bow was often made of two glued layers of larch and birch wood, which gave it great strength. The concave side of such a bow was usually covered with a thin layer of sinews glued with fish glue, while the convex, back side was covered with birch bark. The whole bow was often wrapped with birch bark to make it more elastic. Local peoples also used another kind of bow. Weapons were made only of larch, alder or birch. They were also wrapped with sinew or birch bark to make them more elastic.
The bowstring was made of woven sinew or seal skin. Before the introduction of iron, arrowheads were made of bone, stone and wood. They were fixed to the shaft with sinew threads. The arrowheads often had fur caps to protect the tip.
A suit of armor, originally
made of walrus bone and seal skins, was used as protection; later it was made
of iron. Thin bone plates were bound together with straps. The lower part of
such armor resembled a skirt, which was tied at the side. To protect the upper
part of the back and head, a special device was made of thin wooden boards
covered with wrought leather. This device was securely attached to the
breastplate on all sides and had two movable wings on the side. The arms,
passed through loops on the inside of the wings, held the whole armor in place
on the shoulders. Helmets made of bone plates, later of iron, were used to
protect the head.
