During World War I the mankind faced many serious problems of a humanitarian character: how to organize treatment of the vast number of wounded and provide care for the refugees and what to do with the legion of captives.

Representatives of all strata of Russian society including the members of the House of Romanov, noblemen, merchants and industrialists, private companies, governmental and educational institutions took an active part in providing medical care to the wounded. On the money raised through private donations they opened a lot of new hospitals, while many individuals financed either one or two or ten beds for wounded soldiers in the field and stationary hospitals.

The first part of the display covers the activities of the communities of the sisters of mercy, hospitals and medical trains, which were under the patronage of the Empress Alexandra: the Grand Duchess Tatiana hospital “Care for the Wounded,” the Empress Maria evacuation hospital in Petrograd, the Empress Alexandra medical convoy of the Imperial Automobile Society of Her Majesty’s Tsarskoye Selo medical train.

The second section of the exhibition is dedicated to the activities of the military medics, surgical operations in the field, treatment of the seriously wounded and recovering patients. It also features a number of photographs showing humane attitude to the German and Austrian prisoners of war in accordance with the 1907 Regulations, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land.

In summer 1915 there were 566 hospitals for 45 thousand patients in Petrograd, 90 percent of which had been founded on a pro-bono basis. The exhibition features the pictures depicting some of the privately owned hospitals: the Yusupov hospital, the Company Nobel Brothers’ hospital, the ambulance hospital of the Petrograd higher education institutions, the Second dressing station of the pan-Russian Zemsky Union, the hospital in the Sophia Child Clinic in Moscow, the private hospital of Kozhevina.

Russia suffered huge losses during World War I. About 1 million soldiers and officers were killed and about 3 million were wounded. All layers of Russian society were involved in helping the wounded. The pictures on display demonstrate the scale and diversity of various charitable events and projects, which helped the country to cope with important issues concerning treatment of the wounded during wartime.