The Department of Archaeology is one of the oldest in the State Historical Museum, and its collection contains around 1.5 million items. These items come from archaeological sites, settlements, burials, sanctuaries, ancient cities and fortresses reflecting the longest period in the history of mankind – from the Stone Age to the Late Middle Ages. The collection geographically covers a vast area from the Far East and the Caucasus to Poland and the shores of the North Arctic Ocean. The archaeological collection of the Museum has no equal in our country for completeness, diversity and composition. For example, a unique collection of household utensils and vehicles from Mangazeia city gives a rare opportunity to see a previously hidden side of life in a Russian trading settlement in Northwestern Siberia of the 16th - 17th centuries. The various objects made of leather, wood, fabric and other organic materials are well preserved in the permafrost where they were found.

The unique collection of the Woodwork and Furniture Department is unrivalled for its diversity and exclusivity of some artworks and everyday life pieces. The collection includes objects made of wood and chronologically covers the period from the 13th century to the present day. It shows objects made not only in Russia, but also in West European countries, in the East, and former Soviet Union republics. The Woodwork and Furniture Department collection consists of more than 34,000 items.

The year of creation of the Precious Metals Department of the Historical Museum shall be considered to be 1905, when it was decided to make a Special Storeroom - vault-storage for items made of precious metals and precious stones. These collections of world-class masterpieces and historical significance include works of art of Russian gold and silversmiths of the 11th - 20th centuries. This collection provides a full picture of the development of jewelry art in 50 Art Centers of Russia and 20 Centers of the former USSR. Specifically, it is necessary to note the collections of secular and ecclesiastical items with proprietary and ecclesiastical inscriptions and the collection of silver drinking vessels of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The collection of icons of the Historical Museum started to take shape back in the 1880s-1890s. Some tributes were donated to the museum by the foremost collectors at various times, thanks to which by the end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th centuries about 1200 icons were collected. It became one of the largest state-owned museum collections of Russian icon painting at that time. Presently, the State Historical Museum owns a unique collection of Old Russian paintings, which has over five thousand items and continues to grow. This is one of the largest collections of icon painting in Russia. First-class samples represent all major icon painting centers and regions of Russia of the 14th - 16th centuries. A comprehensive study of Russian icon painting is simply impossible without studying the Novgorod, Pskov, Moscow and Russian North schools. The icon collection of the 17th - the beginning of 20th centuries is unique in its composition and artistic level. The museum also owns the largest and the most complete collection of Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons of the 13th - 19th centuries in Russia. The collection of the outline drawings contains over 20 thousand samples and is one of the most representative in our country.

The formation of the Museum Visual Art Collection began in the 1870-1880s. Currently, the collection is impressively rich and diverse, it comprises over 560 thousand items. Gathered mainly on historical and cultural basis, the collection gives not only visual representation of historical events that happened in Russia, but also its artistic culture in general. All types of visual art (painting, printed and original graphics, miniature, sculpture and photography) and a wide range of genre painting such as portrait, landscape and city landscape, and historical painting are represented in the department.

The State Historical Museum is the only museum in the country that has a specialized department for storing and working with cartographic materials. The collection of the Department, which was established in 1919, has more than 42000 storage units and includes various types of cartographic materials of the 16th - 20th centuries. The 16th - 17th centuries are mainly represented by engraved Western European maps and atlases. The most famous are the maps of Muscovy made by S. Herberstein; A. Jenkinson; L. and Y. Deutecum brothers, G. Gerriits; a map of the Arctic regions by V. Barents of 1598 and, especially, a giant copper globe made by the Bleu workshop (Holland) in the middle of the 17th century. In the collection of the 18th century a special place is occupied by Russian handwritten maps and composite atlases of handwritten maps. Among them are reports of geographical expeditions (including the materials of V. Bering's expedition); departmental maps and plans; materials of the General Survey, including handwritten atlases of governorates and city plans. In the collection of the 19th century the Russian printed maps and atlases (materials of the Military Topographic Depot and the first Russian private specialized "Cartographic institution of A. Ilyin", etc.) are of a special interest. The collection of the 20th century contains a large selection of materials on the most important events of Russian and world history in the first half of the century (among them is the map of the "European Russia according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk" of 1918).