User:Ekem/sandbox2

http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/Financial_Crisis/FinancialCrisisReport.pdf Levin Coburn Report

The Rozhdestveno Memorial Estate is a museum and park near Siverskaya, Gatchinsky District, Leningrad Oblast, that commemorates its most famous owner, Vladimir Nabokov ; the Batovo and Vyra estates, also immortalized by Nabokov, are nearby. As Nabokov grew up at Vyra, he visited his grandmother at Batovo and his uncle at Rozhdestveno. The Batovo mansion burned down in 1925, Vyra was destroyed in 1944, leaving Rozhdestveno as the sole survivor of the triad of estates owned by the Nabokovs.

The estate is named after the Rozhdestva Bogoroditsy Church (Church of the Nativity of Our Lady). The mansion designed in the Italian style was erected in the late 19th century. Six Ionic columns support the main facade. The roof is crowned by a rectangular belvidere. Inside, the large center hall was used for balls and formal receptions. While rooms on the ground floor served for official functions, rooms on the second floor contained the actual living quarters, while the kitchen and other household facilities were located in the basement. Stables and other estate buildings are nearby. During the nineteenth century the estate was acquired by Nabokov's grandfather Ivan Rukavishnikov, and inherited by his son, Vasiliy Ivanovich Rukavishnikov, in 1901. "Uncle Ruka" died in 1916 and bequeathed the estate along with "what would amount nowadays to a couple of million dollars" to his nephew Vladimir Nabokov. Nabokov did not enjoy his property for long. In the course of the revolution he left the Leningrad area in 1917 never to see it again.

The museum fid not start as a memorial to Nabokov when, in 1957, it began as a venue to show the local history and was later converted into a museum of the collective farm named after Lenin. With the presentation of photos from Nabokov's former cook the former estate owners entered the picture. The "Museum of Local History and Tradition" moved to the manor in 1974. It was transformed into the "Rozhdestveno Historic Literary and Memorial Museum of Vladimir Nabokov" in 1984. Nabokov readings started in 1988, and the Nabokov Room was opened in 1992. Significant damage was done by a fire in 1995. While the museum commemorates Nabokov it also displays the life of Russian nobility and of the common people of the area from prior to the First World War.