The Governor's Mansion (russian: Дом губернатора), also known as Kuklin House (russian: Дом Куклина) is a building in

Tobolsk Tobolsk (russian: Тобо́льск) is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Founded in 1590, Tobolsk is the second-oldest Russian settlement east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia, and i ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. It was the home of the

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

of Siberia prior to the

February Revolution of 1917 The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...

. The house, which is located on 10, Mira Street (russian: Улица Мира) in the area of Tobolsk below the Kremlin (''Podgora''), is protected by Russian Federal government as a historical monument.

History

The house was built by merchant Ivan Kuklin in the 1790s, after a disastrous fire of 1788 which destroyed the major part of Podgora. Kuklin went bankrupt in 1817, and the house was confiscated by the authorities. Since 1817, it was the seat of the governor of

Tobolsk Governorate Tobolsk Governorate (russian: Тобольская губерния) was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic and RSFSR located in the Ural Mountains and Siberia. It existed from 1796 to 1920; its ...

. In its function as a governor's mansion, the house has seen a number of notable visitors. In 1800, the playwright

August von Kotzebue August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue (; – ) was a German dramatist and writer who also worked as a consul in Russia and Germany. In 1817, one of Kotzebue's books was burned during the Wartburg festival. He was murdered in 1819 by Karl L ...

, who while exiled to Siberia was required to report to the Governor's Mansion, noted that it still "appeared partly in ruins" on account of the fire. The

decembrists The Decembrist Revolt ( ru , Восстание декабристов, translit = Vosstaniye dekabristov , translation = Uprising of the Decembrists) took place in Russia on , during the interregnum following the sudden death of Emperor Ale ...

who were sentenced to the exile in Tobolsk had to visit the house. On , the former

Russian Emperor The emperor or empress of all the Russias or All Russia, ''Imperator Vserossiyskiy'', ''Imperatritsa Vserossiyskaya'' (often titled Tsar or Tsarina/Tsaritsa) was the monarch of the Russian Empire. The title originated in connection with Russia' ...

Nicholas II Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pola ...

, who lost power when he abdicated in response to the February Revolution of 1917; his wife; five children; and forty-five retainers including

Pierre Gilliard Pierre Gilliard (16 May 1879 – 30 May 1962) was a Swiss academic and author, best known as the French language tutor to the five children of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia from 1905 to 1918. In 1921, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he pu ...

Alexandra Tegleva Alexandra Alexandrovna Tegleva (russian: Александра Александровна Теглева; 2 May 1884–21 March 1955), also known as Shura Tegleva and Sasha Tegleva, was a Russian noblewoman who served as a nursemaid in the Russia ...

Elizaveta Ersberg Elizaveta Nikolaevna "Liza" Ersberg (18 September 1882 - 12 March 1942) was a German-Russian parlormaid who served in the Russian Imperial Household. The daughter of a stoker employed by Emperor Alexander III, she was hired by Empress Maria Fe ...

, Ilya Tatischev, Vasily Dolgorukov,

Sydney Gibbes Charles Sydney Gibbes (19 January 1876 – 24 March 1963) was a British academic who from 1908 to 1917 served as the English tutor to the children of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. When Nicholas abdicated the throne in March 1917 Gibbes volun ...

Anastasia Hendrikova Countess Anastasia Vasilyevna Hendrikova (23 June 1887 – 4 September 1918), was a lady in waiting at the court of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra. She was arrested by the Bolsheviks and shot to death outside Perm in the autumn of 1918. ...

, Catherine Schneider,

Sophie Buxhoeveden Sophie Freiin von Buxhoeveden (russian: София Карловна Буксгевден, tr. ; September 6, 1883 – November 26, 1956), also known as Baroness Sophie Buxdoeveden, was a Baltic German Lady-in-waiting, in service to Tsarina Alexa ...

, Ivan Sednev, and

Leonid Sednev Leonid Ivanovich Sednev (Russian: Леонид Иванович Седнев) (1903 – 1941 or 1942) was a chef's assistant who, together with his uncle Ivan Dmitriyevich Sednev, served former Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his family duri ...

were imprisoned in the mansion. They remained there until April 1918, when they were transferred to the

Ipatiev House Ipatiev House (russian: Дом Ипатьева) was a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg (later renamed Sverdlovsk in 1924, renamed back to Yekaterinburg in 1991) where the former Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917), h ...

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...

and eventually

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

. Following the Revolution the house was renamed the 'House of Freedom'. The mansion is built in the style of

classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aestheti ...

and is highly regarded as an architectural monument. It was also one of the first stone buildings in Tobolsk Podgora. Currently, the mansion belongs to the

Tobolsky District Tobolsky District (russian: Тобо́льский райо́н) is an administrative district (raion), one of the twenty-two in Tyumen Oblast, Russia.Law #53 Within the framework of municipal divisions, it is incorporated as Tobolsky Municipal ...

administration. In 1996, the Emperor's study was open as a museum. Following a complete restoration of the building, which included demolition of an art deco portico and its replacement by one in the original design, it was reopened in 2018 to house The Museum of the Family of Emperor Nicholas II.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Tyumen Oblast Nicholas II of Russia Museums in Tyumen Oblast Houses in Russia Biographical museums in Russia Cultural heritage monuments in Tyumen Oblast