Museum of Political History of Russia

The Museum of Political History of Russia is the country's first institution of its kind, preserving evidence of public life from the final decades of the 18th century to the present day; its holdings number more than 474,000 items. It traces its lineage to the Museum of the Revolution, established by a decree of the Petrograd Soviet on 9 October 1919 and opened in the halls of the Winter Palace in January 1920, which mounted its first full exhibition as early as 1922. Curiously, this institution was the first in the country to respond to the events of the Great Patriotic War: within days of the invasion, on 24 June 1941, work began here on an exhibition dedicated to the martial valour of the Russian armed forces.

In 1955 the collection was given two Art Nouveau mansions, which were soon joined by a shared central block designed by the architect Nikolai Nadyozhin — at that time the institution took a name reflecting the Soviet interpretation of the events of October 1917. One of the mansions was built in 1904–1906 by the architect Alexander von Gogen for the celebrated ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya; in the spring and summer of 1917 her house held the leading Bolshevik bodies — the party's Central and Petersburg Committees, as well as its Military Organisation. The second mansion was built in 1909 by the architect Robert Meltzer for the major timber merchant Vladimir Brant.

In 1972 the museum was placed under the authority of the Union Ministry of Culture as a branch of the Central Museum of the Revolution, and at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s its former exhibition was judged out of step with the times and was completely reworked, without ever interrupting the reception of visitors. In the summer of 1991 the institution took its present name and status, and from 1992 it came under the authority of Russia's Ministry of Culture. In 2013, in the block connecting the two historic mansions, a large-scale exhibition opened on the relationship between society and power over the previous two centuries: the lower floor covers the pre-revolutionary era, the upper floor the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Besides its main building on Kuibyshev Street, the museum has two branches — a children's centre for historical education and a separate exhibition on the history of the country's political police. For its contribution to preserving the city's cultural heritage, the institution has repeatedly been honoured with certificates of merit from the city's Legislative Assembly.