Dome

Front elevation, showing the Victorian massing; The museum was founded in 1872 by Ivan Zabelin, Aleksey Uvarov and several other Slavophiles interested in promotion of Russian history and national self-awareness. The board of trustees, composed of Sergey Solovyov, Vasily Klyuchevsky, Uvarov and other leading historians, presided over construction of the museum building. After a prolonged competition the project was awarded to Vladimir Osipovich Shervud. The present structure was built to Shervud's neo-Russian design between 1875 and 1881, and officially opened in 1894 by Tsar Alexander III. Its interiors were intricately decorated in the Russian Revival style by such artists as Viktor Vasnetsov, Henrik Semiradsky, and Ivan Aivazovsky. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 6/22/2009)