Smolny

Smolny is a place name in central Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is a compound of historically interrelated buildings erected in 18th and 19th centuries. As the most widely known of the buildings has been used as the seat of the City Governor's Office, its name is associated with city authorities.

From late 1917 until 1991 it was mostly associated with the October Revolution of 1917 and Vladimir Lenin, who lived and worked there from late 1917 to early 1918.

A pre-1917 educational facility for young ladies gave rise after 1991 to a number of similarly named places of learning in the city because of the high prestige of the original one in popular culture.

"Smolny" was short for the Russian Smolny dvor ("The Tarring Yard"), referring to its original function as a yard for covering the hulls of wooden ships with tar to make them waterproof and protected from rot and vermin. In the 18th century, this place was located outside of St. Petersburg, but close to the city limits.

In the mid-18th century, Empress Elizabeth of Russia ordered the construction of a Russian Orthodox nunnery, Smolny Convent, where she supposedly wanted to retire in old age. It became a local historical landmark due to its Baroque cathedral, designed by Francesco Rastrelli. The convent had a number of gardens and a hospice.

In the 19th century, the compound received an addition in the form of a Neoclassical building that became the home of the original Smolny Institute— the first and best known royal educational institution for young ladies of noble birth.

Prior to the revolutionary events of 1917, the building was vacated by the institute and was taken over by Soviets. It was here that on November 7, 1917 (this date corresponds to October 25 on the Julian calendar, which was still in use in Russia), that Vladimir Lenin declared that his Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party had usurped power in Russia from the Provisional Government (which had assumed power following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II earlier that year). Lenin and his government worked in the building, and he also lived there with his wife, until the government moved to safety from the fronts of the Russian Civil War and World War I to Moscow in 1918 (effectively transferring the capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow).

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