The headquarters of the Russian Geographical Society
The headquarters of the Russian Geographical Society is on Grivtsov Lane in St Petersburg. The building that houses it was built in 1908 to a design by the architect Gavriil Baranovsky (1860-1920). The project was primarily financed by the Society itself with the support of the State Treasury, the Interior Ministry and Prime Minister Sergei Witte (1849-1915) personally.
The cornerstone of the building was laid on October 21, 1907.
On October 7 (20), 1909, the Geographical Society Council held its first meeting in the new building.
The Geographical Society building currently houses the Society's Science Archive, Museum and Library. The archive contains 136 personal archives of geographers and explorers and 115 collections dealing with the ethnography of Russia's peoples. The Society's Library, the largest geographical library in Europe, holds about 500,000 volumes.
