Attraction

The oldest building in Chita: it was built in 1776 with donations from the townspeople. Today the building houses the Museum of the Decembrists, which presents this period of Chita’s history through documents and photographs. After the Decembrist uprising in 1825 in Saint Petersburg, 88 people were sent to penal servitude in Transbaikal — to Chita and Petrovsky Zavod. Among those exiled to Transbaikal were some of the movement's best-known figures: the organizer Sergey Trubetskoy (who later did not appear on Senate Square; his wife Ekaterina Trubetskaya was the first to follow her husband to Siberia), the de facto leader Yevgeny Obolensky, the intellectual center of the movement Mikhail Lunin, one of the uprising's leaders Nikita Muravyov, the artist Mikhail Bestuzhev, and Prince and hussar regiment commander Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky (whose wife Maria Volkonskaya became one of the key figures among the Decembrists’ wives). In Transbaikal the Decembrists spent their first years of exile, and it was there that their wives arrived. Together they influenced the cultural life of the whole region: their presence led to the opening of schools and medical points, improving life for the local population. A ticket to the museum costs 180 рублей; if you need a guided tour, you must register in advance on the website.