as early as 1923, the photographs of the fenced house were disseminated in the soviet press under the label of "the last palace of the last tsar". in 1927, the house was designated a branch of the ural revolution museum. it then became an agricultural school before taking on new life in 1938 as an anti-religious museum. during this period it was customary for party apparatchiks to arrive in large tour groups, posing before the bullet-damaged wall of the cellar in which the former tsar and his family had been murdered. in 1946, it was taken over by the local communist party. in 1974, it was formally listed as a historical-revolutionary monument. however, to the embarrassment of the government, it was steadily becoming a place of pilgrimage for those who wished to honour the memory of the imperial family.