Pushkin House (Institute of Russian Literature, RAS)

On Makarov Embankment, in the building of the former naval customs house, is housed the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, better known as Pushkin House. It is one of the country's leading research institutions: it comprises research departments, a literary museum, a manuscript collection, and Russia's largest phonogram archive of folklore recordings.

The institute's history began in 1899, when the centenary of Pushkin's birth was widely celebrated and a jubilee exhibition of almost seven hundred items was held. The Academy of Sciences' president at the time, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, secured the convening of a commission on perpetuating the poet's memory, and its work gradually led to the idea of a separate repository for literary relics. The institution's founding date is considered to be 15 December 1905 — the date of the meeting that approved this decision. The regulations for the new institute, drawn up by the bibliographer Boris Modzalevsky, were approved by Nicholas II in 1907. Its first major acquisition was the poet's personal library, purchased with state funds in 1906, and the collection was later enriched by Alexander Onegin's Paris collection and relics of the Hannibal family.

The institute lacked a permanent address for a long time, moving through several buildings — from the main building of the Academy of Sciences to mansions on Millionnaya Street. Only in 1927 did the institution settle at 4 Makarov Embankment — the building of the former naval customs house, erected by the architect Ivan Lukini in 1829–1832, completing the development of the northern side of the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island. The façade facing the Neva is adorned with an eight-column portico with a pediment and three bronze figures — Mercury, Ceres and Neptune, symbolising trade and seafaring. The building holds the status of an architectural monument of federal significance.

The institution became an independent academic institute in 1930, and in 1938 the Folklore Department joined its structure, bringing with it a colossal phonogram archive: more than two hundred thousand recordings of the oral traditions of the peoples of the North, Siberia and the Caucasus, part of which is included in UNESCO's "Memory of the World" register. The Siege of Leningrad proved a grievous ordeal, claiming the lives of many staff members, but the institute continued its work and later prepared major scholarly editions — from the collected works of Belinsky to texts of Old Russian literature. A dedicated Pushkin studies department appeared in 1956.

In 1995, by presidential decree, Pushkin House was included among the list of especially valuable cultural sites belonging to the peoples of Russia. Today the institute brings together a museum, a manuscript department and dozens of research divisions; its staff have repeatedly won state prizes for their work on the history of Russian literature.

Pushkin House remains the principal repository of the written heritage of Russian writers — from Pushkin's own manuscripts to the archives of twentieth-century authors. The union of an old customs building with an immensely rich collection of relics has made the institute not only a scholarly centre, but a symbol of the continuity of Russian cultural memory.