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Council of the Russian Republic in session in the hall of the former Imperial Council of State, at the Marinsky Palace. Martov speaking, Avksentiev in the chair. The picture is taken looking from the seats of the Bolshveiki, empty since they left the Council on the day of its opening. Behind the chairman, the lower corner of Ryepin's great picture of the Tsar Alexander III and his family, now shrouded in a white sheet. In the corner of the hall the twisted hooks from which the portrait of Nicholas I was torn down. The golden Imperial eagles gone from the front of the rostrum.
