Senate Building

The Senate Building was designed by the architect Matvei Kazakov in 1776-87. The central room is a round, white hall called the St.Catherine Hall, in which the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union met. Following the death of Yakov Sverdlov (1919), the first President of Soviet Russia, the hall was named the Sverdlov Hall in his honour. Around this circular hall, 25 metres (80 ft) in diameter and 27 metres (90 ft) high, are closely set Corinthian columns, between which are allegorical reliefs depicting virtues: Justice, Philanthropy, Law abidingness, etc. (these are copies; the originals are in the Armoury). Higher up are reliefs of Russian grand princes and tsars, the originals of which are also in the Armoury. In 1918 the Soviet government occupied the building. One of the rooms became Lenin's Study, in which he also received visitors. Today, Lenin's Study is a museum, in which every item has been left intact, in the same place as during Lenin's lifetime.