There are various types of museums in St. Petersburg. Some are art museums, such as the State Hermitage Museum, one of the most significant attractions in the St. Petersburg tour. There are several history museums, such as Museum of St. Petersburg History, which you can visit several of its branches inside the Peter and Paul Fortress on tour to St. Petersburg. We have multiple science museums such as Kunstkamera, one of the oldest museums in Russia. We have several biographic museums. However, biographic museums are not quite popular among travel agencies and tourists of Russia tour, despite their number in St. Petersburg. There are several types of biographic museums. Some of these museums are dedicated to artists, poets, singers, and writers; many tourists who love to learn about Russian literature would visit these museums during their tour to Russia. There are several museums dedicated to the Russian scientists as well. However, these museums mostly about their work rather than their life. Some of these museums belonged to the heroes of Russia, such as Alexander Suvorov, which his memorial museum is one of the major attractions of St. Petersburg tour. Although politicians are not that popular among people to have their memorial museums, especially the Soviet politicians, there is one memorial museum in St. Petersburg that is dedicated to one of these politicians, Sergei Kirov.
The Soviet-era wasn’t a pleasant time for many people in Russia, especially in St. Petersburg. After the fall of the Soviet Union, many soviet symbols replaced, and many streets name changed back to their previous titles. However, not all the people from that era have been forgotten. Despite being a Soviet politician and a revolutionary who became the local communist party leader in St. Petersburg after the October Revolution, Sergei Kirov has remained in thoughts of St. Petersburg locals and has been honored even after all these years. Kirov, who was a personal friend to Joseph Stalin, raised through the ranks of the Communist Party and became the head of the party in Leningrad. However, his assassination in 1934, which was believed to be the work of Stalin himself, used as a pretext for Stalin to begin the Great Purge in Leningrad and escalate its opposition in the name of the party. For that matter, many people still honor Sergei Kirov as one of the fallen heroes in Leningrad. However, this wasn’t the only reason behind his popularity among people. In his first year of work as the head of the party in Leningrad, he was also responsible for fast and sizeable industrial development in the city. You can find Kirov’s monument on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt during your tour to Russia.
The Sergei Kirov Memorial Museum locates on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt in an apartment that Kirov used to live in his last eight years of life. However, it’s not only a memorial museum to Sergei Kirov but also a history museum about Leningrad between the 1920s and 1930s, when Kirov was head of the local party and ruler of the city. Kirov was a close ally of Stalin at the beginning of the revolution and after forming the Soviet Union. However, after he appointed as the head of the party in 1926, he often opposed Stalin’s growing repression of the party. That was one of the reasons why most people believed Stalin himself was behind the murder of Kirov in 1934, which led to the launch of the Great Purge at the end of the 1930s.
One of the main features of the Sergei Kirov Memorial Museum is the house itself. All eight rooms of the house are preserved precisely the way it was when Kirov lived there, and the ones that damaged are entirely restored. In this section of the museum, you can find the bedroom, Kirov’s home office, kitchen, library, dining room, recreation room, and others. In addition to the rooms, most of the interior elements have been preserved as well as a unique collection of Kirov’s personal belongings, which is one of the major attractions of the museum for the visitors of Russia tour. Kirov loved hunting; thus, you can find several hunting tools and clothes among his belongings as well as trophies, gifts from Leningrad workers, and carpentry and metalworking tools.
There is a section in the museum that lets children and adults experience the life of people of Leningrad in the 1930s. The game <Take what you are given> gives the visitors who have decided to visit this museum on their tour to Russia to learn about the life of people of Leningrad at that time, including the difficulties that they faced, such as good shortage and starvation.
The real office of Sergei Kirov was located in the former Smolny Institute. However, the museum administrators have recreated this office in his memorial museum. It was there where many of the issues about the daily life of the people of Leningrad were resolved. Therefore, it was the place where Kirov was visited by scientists, intellectuals, workers, and directors of factories. You can visit this office during your tour to Russia without the need to travel far.
One of the exciting parts of the Sergei Kirov Museum is the interactive exhibition “For our happy childhood.” This section tells the story of children from the era of 1917 to the 1940s. It features the songs from that era and displays the children’s movies made after the revolution. While children have the opportunity to learn about those days by playing with the exhibition’s features, adults can learn about how Soviet raised their next generation.
Since the Kamenoostrovsky Prospekt is one of the largest and essential avenues of St. Petersburg, and this memorial museum locates on this street, there’s also a section that tells the history of Kamenoostrovsky Prospekt in the museum. It means that by visiting this museum during your Russia tour, you will learn about Sergei Kirov, the life of the people of Leningrad between the 1920s and 1930s, and the life of the children after the revolution up to the 1940s.
If you are interested to learn more about this kind of museum on your tour to St. Petersburg or you want to learn more about Russia’s attractive places in general, we at the Star Travel Group suggest you visit our weblog. We also give tips and pieces of advice about how to travel to Russia.
