Benois House

"It was one of the most comfortable houses of the early twentieth century, a "city in the city" for 250 apartments, with advanced engineering communications, a power station, a boiler house, and garages, etc. The complex was serviced by twenty janitors. In Soviet times, the "fathers" of Leningrad lived here, beginning with Sergei Kirov. A composer Dmitri Shostakovich lived here as well, whose bust is installed in an open courtyard from the side of Kronverkskaya street. The courtyards of the House of Benoit represent a real maze, there are more than ten of them, from the grand Courtyard to the St. Petersburg "wells" with bizarrely curving arches. Turning into the next gateway, you never know to which of the four streets you will get."

"After the revolution of 1917, many apartments in this house became communal. Some of the apartments have been given to the Party and government leaders. In April 1926, Kirov started to live in a service apartment number 20 in the house 26/28 on the Krasnyh Zor’ (Red Dawn) street (former Kamennoostrovsky Avenue). Sergei Mironovich Kirov was head of the Communist party organization in Leningrad. There he lived with his wife, Maria Lvovna Marcus until the last day of his life, up to December 1st 1934. In 1955, the apartment became a museum."