One history museum in St Petersburg which is really worth visiting is the State Memorial Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad which details the immense suffering of Leningrad citizens during dark days of the Second World War when the city was encircled by Nazi troops and cut off from the rest of the country. It was opened in 1946 in the building complex known as the Solyanoi Gorodok (Salt Town) as this area was once used for storing salt. However in 1953 the museum was closed - a victim of the Leningrad Affair, when there was a crackdown on perceived Leningrad anti-revolutionaries - and many of its exhibits were given to other museums. Surprisingly the museum dedicated to this defining chapter of the city's existence was only reopened in 1989. Today it has many interesting exhibits detailing the difficult 872 days of destruction and starvation.