“…I bought a new photo album — a very large one — and I will be collecting pictures. Photos of the Decembrists, and others,” Alexander Herzen wrote on February 10, 1864. The museum’s exhibition features five photos of the Decembrists from this album: Kondraty Ryleyev, Mikhail Lunin, Sergey Volkonsky, Vasily Ivashev, and Ivan Pushchin. Shortly before the amnesty, in 1853–1855, Yevgeny Yakushkin, the son of Ivan Yakushkin, traveled to Siberia twice. There, he took photos and painted portraits of the Decembrists.

In the early 1860s, these photos and prints were circulated among like-minded individuals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1861, Nikolay Gerbel, a collector and publisher of Decembrist documents, left Russia. In late July, he visited Alexander Herzen in London and handed over photos of the Decembrists. Shortly before his arrival, Alexander Herzen met with Prince Sergey Grigoryevich Volkonsky in Paris. Prince Volkonsky was the only surviving leader of the Southern Society of the Decembrists and a friend of Pavel Pestel.

Alexander Herzen described his impressions of meeting Prince Sergey Volkonsky,

After traveling abroad, Sergey Volkonsky settled in his son-in-law’s estate in the village of Voronki in October 1858. There, he worked on his memoirs. According to the conditions of the amnesty, Volkonsky and other Decembrists were forbidden from living in Moscow and St. Petersburg.