The State Museum of Oriental Art (Russian: Музей Востока) is one of the biggest cultural institutions in the world for preservation, research, and display of Oriental art. The museum was founded in 1918 as a part of soviet programme to support unique cultures of USSR subdivisions. Since 1970 the museum is located in the centre of Moscow in the historical building known as the Lunins' House, a private residence built in the early 19th century by the famous architect Domenico Gilardi. The museum has galleries for the art and archaeology of India, Persia, China, Japan, Buryatia, Transcaucasia, and Chukchi Peninsula. Major part of the Persian objects have been donated by General Tardov in 1929. In 2017 the Nicholas Roerich Museum was established as a part of the State Museum of Oriental Art. Named after the prominent Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, the new museum holds more than 800 masterpieces of Western painters from his collection and numerous items of decorative and applied arts, that Roerich family brought from India.