«Gorokhovaya, 2»

The branch of the Museum of Political History of Russia is located in a mansion built in the late 18th century under the project of the architect G. Quarenghi for the president of the medical board Baron I.F.Fitingof. From the middle of the XIX century. the security and political investigation bodies of the capital of the Russian Empire were located here: the administration of the Metropolitan Governorate, the Department for the Preservation of Public Order and Peace in St. Petersburg and the Provincial Gendarmerie Office.

From the 1870s to February 1917, representatives of various oppositional revolutionary movements were brought as prisoners to pre-trial detention facilities at Gorokhovaya Street, 2, for example V.I. Lenin and many others.

From December 1917 to March 1918 on Gorokhovaya, 2, All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (VChK) worked here, it was headed by F.E. Dzerzhinsky, and after the transfer of the capital to Moscow, the building housed the Petrogradskaya Cheka. The Chekists worked on Gorokhovaya until the completion of the Great House on Liteiny Ave, 4, in 1932.

Exhibition projects of the branch highlight the activities of Russian special services in the XX century.