The Berdan II infantry rifle from the Gatchina Palace and Estate Museum was made in Russia. On May 9, 1887, Emperor Alexander III with his family arrived to Tula and visited the Tula Arms Plant. He was offered to stamp the name of the plant on the barrel of this rifle. After that all metal parts of the rifle were covered with a gilded floral pattern on a blued background and the barrel was decorated with a gilded inscription describing the visit of the Emperor to the plant. Tula gunsmiths also manufactured a similar Berdan II dragoon rifle for Empress Maria Feodorovna to match the Emperor’s rifle. This second rifle is now exhibited in the Tula State Museum of Weapons. The most striking element of the infantry rifle from the Gatchina collection is its stock. All its surface is decorated with a stylised floral pattern in Pseudo-Russian style which was the height of fashion at the time of Alexander III. The pattern is inlaid with ivory inserts as well as with silver and gold wire. The stock was decorated by the craftsman Mikhail Stepanov of Tula. He was not very well off, but he was an experienced craftsman who had been studying the art of making stocks since he was 8 years old working for the Polins, famous gunsmiths of Tula. Later he had further developed his carving skills working for Nikolai Morozov. He spent two years working on this rifle before it was sent to the Gatchina Palace. It is possible that such delay was the result of a crime — when the work was finished one of the workers stole the stock from the workshop hoping to recover gold wire. It was not easy so the thief cut the stock to pieces with an axe, burned it and tried to sell the gold to a dentist. The thief was found and prosecuted but Mikhail Stepanov had to start his work from scratch. Though this story is usually told in connection with the rifle made for Empress Maria Feodorovna, it is not impossible, that the stock of Alexander III’s rifle was also destroyed by the thief. The barrel of the rifle is made of blued steel. It is decorated with a gilded floral pattern and an inscription styled after Old Russian manuscripts: ‘His Imperial Majesty Emperor Alexander Alexandrovich in memory of his visit to the Imperial Tula Arms Plant on May 9, 1887, had the grace to stamp the name of the plant on this barrel with his own hand’. Closer to the breech end there is the stamped inscription ‘Imperial Tula Arms Plant 1887’. The stock is made of nut wood and all its surface is decorated with a stylised pattern of flowers and branches in Pseudo-Russian style. On the right side of the buttstock there is the monogram of Alexander III under a crown inlaid with gold, ivory and silver and gold wire. On the left side there are three lines reading ‘May 9, 1887’, inlaid in the same technique.