For a long time, Russian small arms were patterned closely after French designs - the Russian 1809 family was based on the French 1777 muskets, and the Russian 1828 model - like this one - were taken from the French 1822 model. This is a .69 caliber (7-line) smoothbore musket, manufactured at the Tula arsenal in 1836. Most of these were eventually converted into 1828/44 pattern percussions guns, but this example escaped update because it was taken as a souvenir by a British soldier at the Battle of Inkerman on November 5th, 1854. Inkerman was the last major field battle in the Crimean War before the Siege of Sevastopol that would result in the end of the war.