Viceroy's Palace

The Viceroy's Palace took its name from the office for which it was built. After the Pugachev Rebellion, Ekaterina II was reorganizing provincial administration. In seventeen eighty-two, she established the Tobolsk Viceroyalty, divided into Tobolsk Oblast and Tomsk Oblast. A viceroy was the head of such a union, appointed by the empress. Yevgeny Kashkin was the first to head Perm and Tobolsk Krai.

For the new institutions, the builders retained the first floor of the old Prikaz Chamber—the former administrative building—and built two more above it. The palace housed working offices and the ceremonial Throne Room. When the viceroyalty opened, officials came here in a religious procession after the service at St. Sophia Cathedral; then the courts, treasuries, and provincial administration began their work.

Six years later, a major fire destroyed the upper floors. For almost half a century, only the walls of the palace remained. In eighteen thirty-one, officials restored the building, although the office of viceroy was soon abolished. The former palace became provincial government offices—the name for state offices gathered under one roof. The treasury, provincial council, prosecutor's office, and the Prikaz of Exiles were housed here. The Prikaz recorded convicted people, distributed them across Siberia, and supervised the settlements.

In eighteen forty-one, Ivan Annenkov was hired by the chancery of the provincial administration. Before his arrest, he had been a lieutenant in the elite Cavalier Guard Regiment, the sole heir to extensive estates, and a member of a Decembrist secret society seeking to change the system of government. After the uprising failed, Annenkov refused to inform on his comrades. He was stripped of his rank, nobility, and property rights, and sentenced to twenty years of hard labor followed by permanent settlement in Siberia. His term was reduced several times, but he came to this palace's chancery at the lowest level—as a fourth-class attendant.

Two years later, Annenkov was appointed inspector of settlements for the Tobolsk Exile Expedition. He inspected the offices through which convicted people passed and conducted investigations into embezzlement of public funds and abuses by police officers and other officials. In eighteen forty-nine, the former state criminal became an assessor in the Prikaz of Exiles itself: he now reviewed the documents under which other people were sent to and placed in Siberia.

Annenkov rose to a civil rank and was promoted for distinguished service. The amnesty of eighteen fifty-six restored his rights and allowed him to leave Siberia. In Nizhny Novgorod, he again served as an official and conducted inspections of county institutions.

Today, this is the Museum of the History of Siberian Administration. The Throne Room was restored from old descriptions: the palace's original upper part had burned down as early as seventeen eighty-eight. Annenkov's personal desk and office have not survived. What has survived is the eighteen thirty-one building, where the former Decembrist was hired as a junior clerk and where he later reviewed cases for the Prikaz of Exiles.