MOSCOW, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin says that that several buildings making up the Kremlin Museum will be restored and a new exhibition hall will be constructed.
, The project is expected to be completed in time for the museum's 200th anniversary in 2006, The Art Newspaper reported Tuesday.
The new hall will more than double the museum's exhibition space and provide much needed restoration studios and a storage center, the report quoted museum officials as saying.
They would not disclose the cost of the project but described it as "a substantial sum," most of it coming from the federal government with the help of some private sponsorship.
The buildings that Putin said will be restored are the 17th century Patriarch's Palace, also to be used as new exhibition space; the early 16th century Belfry of Ivan the Great, which will be used as a hall for a permanent exhibition concerning the Kremlin's architecture, and the 16th century Archangel Cathedral, which functions as a royal crypt.
These are inside the Kremlin walls, but the new exhibition hall will be built just outside the walls.
