The foundation of “Special Collection” can be traced back to 1937-1939, when the members of the NKVD (the Russian abbreviation for the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) collected potentially “dangerous” art works, with the aim of destroying them. Due to the outbreak of the Second World War and the efforts of museum workers, the collection survived, although many works were lost during the war. The artworks were secretly preserved in the museum’s storeroom. Apart from the secret police, only the museum’s director and chief curator knew about the existence of this collection. Due to the storeroom’s good conditions, the materials are well preserved. They were even catalogued in the 1940s, in preparation for the destruction, but survived.