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Luga Museum of Local History and Tradition
N. Rimsky-Korsakov Memorial House Museum
N. Roerikh Estate Museum
"Lodeinoe Polye" Museum of Local History and Tradition
"Manege" Central Exhibition Hall
"Muranovo" Manor-Museum
"Ostafievo" Museum
"Ostankino" Museum
"The MonRepos Park" State Historic and Natural Reserve Museum
Alexander Pushkin Museum
Art Library of the State Russian Museum
Central Museum of Air Forces
Central Naval Museum
Chaikovsky Manor-Museum
Gatchina
Historic and Art Museum Ivangorod Fortress
Historic and Ethnographic Reserve Museum Yalkala
Historic Architectural and Archeological Reserve Museum Staraya Ladoga
I.P. Pavlov Museum
Kingisepp Museum of Local History and Tradition
Kirishi Museum of Local History and Tradition and Exhibition Hall
Literary and Art Museum "Priyutino"
Luga Museum of Local History and Tradition
Maltmakers House
Memorial House of Fyodor Shalyapin
Memorial Mamayev Kurgan
Memorial Museum of Space Exploration
Museum of Black Sea Fleet
Museum of Decorative-Applied and Folk Arts
Museum of History of Kazan University
Museum of History of Moscow
Museum of Russian Political History
Museum of Sevastopol Heroic Defence
Museum of the Town of Volkhov
Museum-Panorama "Borodino Battle"
Museum-reserve "Alexandrovskaya Sloboda"
N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov House Museum
N.G. Chernyshevsky Museum
N.K. Rerikh Museum
Novaya Ladoga Museum of Local History and Tradition
Open-Air Museum of Malye Karelie
Outsider Art Museum
Pavlovsk
Peterhof
Podporozhie Museum of Local History and Tradition
Pogankin House
Reserve museum "The Breakthrough of the Siege of Leningrad"
Rozhdestveno Memorial Estate
Russian State Museum of Arctic and Antarctic
Sakhalin Regional Art Museum
Shalyapin Chamber Hall
Slantsy Museum of Local History and Tradition
State Hermitage Museum
State Museum of the Political History of Russia
Tatarstan State Museum of Fine Arts
The Cabin of Peter the Great
The Glinka Museum of Musical Culture
The Postmaster House Museum
The Sevastopol Art Museum
The State Museum of the Fine Arts
The State Russian Museum
The State Tretyakov Gallery
The Vitoslavlitsy Museum of Wooden Architecture
The Vyborg Castle Museum
Tikhvin Memorial Museum of History, Architecture and Art
Tosno Museum of Local History and Tradition
Tsarskoe Selo
Ulan-Ude Ethnographic Museum
V.I. Surikov House-Museum
Vernadsky Geological Museum
Yaroshenko Memorial House-Museum
Yelagin Palace
Yusupovsky Palace
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Pogankin House

Pogankin HouseThe merchant Sergei Pogankin built this house not only to live in, but also as a place to store his incredible wealth. The house is fortress-like. Its lower part is made of very durable blocks unaffected by either damp or bitter cold. Higher up the walls are different: their porous white limestone slabs were easier to work with. The house's walls look as though they were sculptured, rather than built. Small, dark windows can be seen in the deep niches cut in the wall meant to hold iron shutters. The windows are scattered across the surface of the walls - either singly or in groups, some up high, some down low. The upper part of the walls facing the street are windowless and they have only narrow slits for defensive purposes in their lower level. The three-sided house is built around a large, rectangular courtyard with one side left open. One section has three floors, another two, and the third section has only one floor. The tall L-shaped section is the oldest part. There is a wooden porch along the wall of the house in the courtyard. It was built in our day instead of the old stone porch, which disappeared long ago. One can rest on its broad benches after a walk through the town on a summer day. Today the Pogankin House contains Pskov State Museum and is in itself one of the museum's finest exhibits. The owner of Pogankin House, the merchant Sergei Pogankin, was a leg-endary figure, and his family is traced back to the 16th century. Tradition has it that Ivan the Terrible once de-manded money of one of the members of this family during his attack on Pskov. "How much do you need, Sire?" was the reply. "You rascal (pogany)! Are you rich enough to satisfy my needs?" shouted Ivan. From that day on, so the legend goes, the merchant was called Pogany, and his children bore the name "Pogankin". There are other explanations for the name, as well. However, reality was somewhat different. (This was discovered by the outstanding scholar and curator in the Pskov State Museum, Leonid Tvorogov). Beginning as a hired labourer, Sergel Pogankin, thanks to his gifted, en-ergetic, and hard-working nature, managed to rise in life. He was the head of the Pskov Treasury (one of only four treasuries then existing in Russia). Treasury heads were appoint-ed on their ability to pay out of their own pockets any funds that might go missing from the treasury. In the late 1670s Sergei Pogankin became one of five elected members on the administrative council for Pskov and its suburbs - the "Zemskaya izba". At various times Sergei Pogankin was in charge of state tax-collecting from privately-owned drinking estab-lishments and was head of the Cus-toms Department - after all he knew all the ins and outs! He died during a plague, leaving no direct heirs. All his property passed to his nepnep, Grigory Pogankin, who bequeathed it to the churches and monasteries so that the soul of sinners who accumu-lated these vast riches might "find peace". The Pogankin family ended with Grigory's death in 1711. At the beginning of the 18th century the Pogankin House was bought for a song by Yakov Korsakov, a Pskov land-owner. He added two-storey and one-storey wings to it. In 1747 the House was bought by the War De-partment and used as provisions stores. In 1900 the Pogankin House was given to the Pskov Archaeological Society, which used the building as a museum and for drawing classes. After the October Revolution the entire building was turned into a museum. Severe from the outside, the House is hospitable inside. Some of the rooms are small with cosy corners and passage-ways, and some are spacious, with high, triangularly-vaulted ceilings and win-dows in deep, but light niches, with floors located at different levels and with small staircases between them; there is a steep staircase in the walPogankin Housel and an enormous hall up above, the flat ceiling of which rests on a large, round pillar set in the very centre of the hall. The windows are not large, but the rooms are light enough because each has several windows, frequently set in two tiers, and it often looks very beauti-ful with the windows set into a triangular vault, although from the outside they seem irregular. The large window niches, which expand inside the house, allow light to pour into the rooms. Some rooms have windows on two, even three sides of the house. These end rooms are filled with light. Only the bottom floor, used as a storeroom, is gloomy. Two underground passages led out of the house's basement. One led to the Pogankin family chapel where Sergei Pogankin was buried. This was the Church of St. John the Precursor, which the Pogankin family built with their own funds. It belonged to the monastery which stood by the city wall, and so the underground passageway led outside the city limits.

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Pskov, Russia

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