The former country house of Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov has been destroyed by fire and police say they cannot rule out arson.
A blaze swept through the historic wooden building two weeks before celebrations to mark what would have been Nabokov's 96th birthday.
The author of "Lolita" inherited the two-story house in Rozhdestveno, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of St Petersburg, from his uncle in 1916.
He spent a year there before fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution for the United States in 1918. The house was transformed into a museum in 1987, 10 years after the writer's death.
Scores of firefighters battled through the night to control the blaze which started in an upstairs room.
Next day the flames were fanned again and the house burned to its foundations.
Museum staff, villagers and fire crews braved the intense heat to salvage exhibits from the wreckage.
They managed to rescue priceless heirlooms, photographs, and furniture before the flames became overpowering.
The blaze began on April 10, a day when the museum was closed.
A passer-by noticed smoke shortly after 3pm. Villagers used everything they could lay their hands on to try and put out the fire.
But by the time fire crews arrived -- 20 minutes after the alarm was raised -- much of the building had been destroyed. The seat of the fire was near a ladder leading up to a glass-roofed observation deck.
The museum's current owners, the State Inspectorate for the Preservation of Monuments, is counting the cost of the fire, so far estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It is not known whether there are any plans to reconstruct the building.
A fire investigation team from nearby Gatchina was sifting through the debris to determine the cause of the devastation. One theory is that the fire was started deliberately.
A police spokesman confirmed the blaze could have been the work of arsonists but would not give further details.
The planned celebrations, which have had to be shelved, included a series of events at the museum in honor of the writer's memory.
A spokesman from the Gatchina fire unit said the conflagration highlighted the difficulties associated with fighting fires in wooden buildings."We did not have enough human resources," he said.