Main Museum Building (Prisutstvennye Mesta Building)

About museum

The main administrative institution of the Novgorod Governorate in the 18th–19th centuries. The project for the Prisutstvennye Mesta building was developed by the provincial architect V. S. Polivanov. The Prisutstvennye Mesta housed the district treasury, criminal and civil courts, the kazennaya palata (state chamber), the Office of Public Charity (Prikaz Obshchestvennogo prizreniya), the provincial drafting office and other organizations. The cellars were occupied by wine "magaziny" — warehouses.

The monument in its present form is a typical building of the Classical era. Today the building houses the museum’s main exhibitions. Among them is the most extensive collection of Old Russian icons in the world, works by early masters — woodcarvers — as well as a collection of archaeological finds that tell the history of the Novgorod region.