In 1764, Catherine II founded the first school for the girls of noble origin in the convent buildings. The young ladies were taught dancing, good manners, sewing, drawing, languages and arithmetic. Later the school was moved to a  long yellow building built by Quarenghi in 1806-1808.  During the October Revolution in 1917, the Smolny was the headquarters of the Bolshevik Party. The decrees on peace and land ownership were ratified here. It was in the Smolny that Sergey Kirov, the head of the Leningrad Party organization, was assassinated in December, 1934.