St Petersburg City Duma

The City Duma building, with its narrow multi-tiered tower, stands on Nevsky Prospect and remains one of the most recognisable architectural landmarks on the city's main street. The main block was erected in the 1780s to a design by the architect Ferrari, and soon after, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, a tower was added — the work of an architect who happened to share the same surname, Giacomo. In the first half of the 19th century the tower's upper tier was used for an optical telegraph, relaying signals between St Petersburg and other cities, and later, right up until the 1920s, it served as a fire lookout post — a watchtower from which duty officers scanned the rooftops for smoke. The building's appearance changed several times: in the mid-19th century it was thoroughly rebuilt by the architects Yefimov and Bohnstedt, and shortly before the revolution two more storeys were added to a design by the architect Kenel.

The building took its name from the institution housed within it — the executive body of municipal self-government for the imperial capital. The Duma was established in 1786 under a charter of Catherine II granting towns the right to their own administration; its remit covered municipal utilities, taxes and dues, trade, healthcare and education. An assembly of councillors, elected for four-year terms by townspeople divided into categories according to property status, chose the executive body and the mayor, who stood at the head of the whole system. Under Paul I the Duma was temporarily replaced by another institution, but was soon restored in its former form. Reforms in the second half of the 19th century made the Duma non-estate-based, changed the electoral procedure, and repeatedly revised the property qualification for voters, at times narrowing and at times widening the circle of those entitled to vote.

After the February Revolution of 1917 the municipal self-government body underwent another reorganisation, and following new elections the Bolsheviks won a majority of seats; Kalinin was elected chairman. In the spring of 1918 the city council decided to dissolve the Duma, and by the autumn of that year the institution had ceased operating altogether, leaving the building on Nevsky Prospect with nothing but its name.