Memorial Estates and Cemeteries
A.PUSKIN APARTMENT MUSEUM
The Apartment Museum of A. Pushkin is the memorial museum of Russia's most celebrated poet,
reviving the last period of his life. Here he lived between 1836 and 1837, and died after being mortally wounded
in a dramatic duel.
The museum boasts of numerous literary and historical exhibitions, charting the life, work and times of arguably
Russia's greatest writer. It was in this apartment that the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin spent his last
four months from 12 October 1836 to his death on 29 January 1837. The apartment has been restored to look exactly
as it did in Pushkin's last days and even hours. Pushkin's study is of particular interest.
It contains the poet's library, with 4,000 volumes in European and oriental languages, his writing desk,
his favourite chair, a little bureau beside the couch, an inkstand with the bronze figure of an Ethiopian boy,
walking sticks. The walls are hung with portraits of the poet's intimate friends, his wife Natalia Nikolayevna,
their children and the last portrait of Pushkin to be painted during his lifetime.
DOSTOYEVSKY MEMORIAL MUSEUM
The memorial apartment of one of Russia's most renowned and prolific writers is located in the house where the writer rented his last apartment from 1878 until his death in 1881. It was here that he worked on his Diary,
his famous Speech on Pushkin and completed his last novel The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky's apartment has
been restored to its original state with the aid of archive material, photographs and memoirs by the writer's
contemporaries. The memorial rooms (the entrance-hall, drawing-room, study, dining-room and the room of the
writer's wife, contain displays of Dostoyevsky's personal belongings and furnishings, many of which were donated
to the museum by the writer's descendants. Together, the exhibits illustrate the life of a Russian intellectual
in the second half of the 19th century.
AKHMATOVA MEMORIAL MUSEUM
The museum dedicated to the life and work of Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966).
The exhibits displayed in the six halls of the museum provide a lively account of Akhmatova's life and work.
Some of the less well-known portraits and photographs of Akhmatova and her contemporaries, books from her library,
rare editions, unique autographs of Silver Age poets and assorted memorabilia are to be seen here.
Akhmatova's room and her husband’s study have been recreated to look like they did during their owners' lifetime.
BLOK APARTMENT MUSEUM
The museum of the great Russian poet Alexander Blok (1880-1921). The Blok family lived in apartments 21 and 23
at different times from 1912. Here the poet wrote his famous cycles of verses, The Terrible World, Carmen,
The Mother, and the poems Retribution and The Twelve. In the spring of 1917 Blok returned from the front and
lived here until his death in 1921. Most of the exhibits are authentic memorabilia -manuscripts written by Blok
and his contemporaries, historical photographs, first editions of the poet's books and a collection of
illustrations for his poems are all on display.
CHALIAPIN APARTMENT MUSEUM AND THE RUSSIAN OPERA MUSEUM
The great Russian singer Fedor Ivanovich Chaliapin (1873-1938) lived in this apartment from the end of 1914 to 1922.
The memorial rooms recreate the atmosphere of Chaliapin's life and work. They house a collection of old weapons
presented to the singer by Maxim Gorky and a collection of Russian art works from the late 19th and early 20th
century, including paintings by Alexander Benois, Alexander Golovin and Konstantin Korovin.
Authentic theatrical costumes, personal belongings, documents and autographed opera scores, designs
of stage sets and costumes, documentary photographs are on display.
NABOKOV MANSION
A permanent exhibition is to be seen in the house that once belonged to the eminent public figure and lawyer,
Vladimir Nabokov (1869-1922). Here the world-famous writer, Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), spent his childhood
and youth. The exhibition is situated on the ground floor in the former pantry.
It traces the history of the building on Bolshaya Morskaya Street (from the 1740s), touching on the Nabokov family
and the writer's life and work abroad. The display includes family albums and part of Nabokov's collection of
butterflies, presented to the museum by Harvard University. Visitors can explore the interiors of the building,
which is one of the first examples of Art Nouveau architecture in the city.
'LITERATORSKIE MOSTKI' CEMETERY
The tombs of the writers Ivan Turgenev, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Leskov,
Alexander Kuprin, Vsevolod Garshin, Leonid Andreyev, Alexander Blok, Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky and Olga Bergholz
are all to be found in the Literatorskie Mostki Cemetery. Here one can see the graves of revolutionary populists
and social democrats, including Nikolai Mikhailovsky, Herman Lopatin, Vera Zasulich and Georgy Plekhanov,
the burial place of the Ulyanov family, the graves of the illustrious scholars Dmitry Mendeleyev,
Ivan Pavlov, Nikolai Miklukho-Maklai, Vladimir Bekhterev, Alexander Popov, and eminent Russian artists such
as Nikolai Akimov, Isaac Brodsky, Alexander Briantsev, Leonty Benois, Agrippina Vaganova, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin,
Arkady Rylov and Nikolai Simonov.
The tombstones to be found in the cemetery are the work of Ilya Ginzburg, Mark Antokolsky, Mikhail Anikushin, Matvei Manizer, Leonid Sherwood and other well-known sculptors. The Church of the Resurrection, the oldest building in the cemetery erected in the second half of the 18th century, houses an exhibition devoted to the writers, scientists and public figures buried in the Literatorskie Mostki Cemetery.
