About

The Kshesinskaya Mansion on the Petrogradskaya Side — the Northern Art Nouveau (Severny Modern) residence of the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya. Kshesinskaya was prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Ballet and, in her earlier years, the mistress of Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, future Nicholas II. She built the mansion in 1904-1906 for her private life after their relationship ended; she left Russia after the 1917 Revolution. The Kshesinskaya Mansion is one of the most distinctive examples of Northern Art Nouveau architecture in central Petersburg and a specific site of Russian revolutionary history: Lenin's April 1917 speeches from the balcony were one of the defining moments of the Bolshevik return to Petrograd. The mansion currently houses the State Museum of Political History of Russia. The mansion tour combines the biographical material on Kshesinskaya with the architectural and revolutionary context.