Rumyantsev Mansion Museum

About museum

In the 1740s the first stone house appeared on the Neva embankment, which belonged to the Golitsyn princes. In 1802 it was acquired by Count N. P. Rumyantsev, Chancellor of the Russian Empire, an enlightener and patron of the arts. He turned the house into a "center of science" and a "temple of music", and on May 28, 1831 the first private public museum in Russia was opened here. All expenses for its maintenance were borne by S. P. Rumyantsev. In 1882 the house was purchased by the wife of E. M. Romanovsky, Z. D. Bogarne, the 5th Duke of Leuchtenberg. The Leuchtenbergs and their descendants owned the house until 1916. After the October Revolution of 1917 various organizations and residential apartments appeared in the mansion. In 1938 the Museum of the History and Development of Leningrad was established here, and in 1946 an exhibition dedicated to the history of the city from its founding until the mid-20th century was opened. In 2003 the interiors of the mansion's state rooms were recreated as they appeared in the 1880s.