The Gromovskaya prison in Kirov caught fire.

      Late in the evening on September 27, a fire broke out in a historic building at 22 Truda Street in central Kirov — the Gromov House. A report of the blaze came in at around 10:00 p.m. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties, the Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations for the Kirov Region reported.

      The Gromov House was built in the mid-19th century for the civil servant Varvara Gromova. Later it was acquired by the county zemstvo administration, and for a long time the building was used as a prison for people arrested under sentences by justices of the peace — it became popularly known as the "Gromov Prison." After the revolution the building changed functions several times: it housed workshops of the All-Union Society of the Blind, and later it became a residential building.

      You can see what the house looked like before the fire in the photographs below. It should be noted that in 2017 a cultural heritage site in Kirov — the "Chinese House" — caught fire. The sad history of the house that somehow survived against all odds can be read in detail in our piece on the city's decaying historic houses.