The memorial apartment of Aleksandr Pushkin on Arbat is a branch of the State Museum of Alexander Pushkin located in the memorial apartment of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin on Arbat, where they lived with Natalya Goncharova several months after their wedding in 1831. The museum was founded in 1972, the opening after a large-scale restoration of the interior took place in 1986. As of 2018, the exposition consists of works of art, memorial items, as well as a collection of furniture of the 19th century.
In the house number 53 on Arbat street is located the museum “Memorial apartment A.S. Pushkin. ” In Moscow, this is the only museum memorial of the great Russian poet. The building is included in the list of cultural monuments of national importance.
January 23, 1831 A.S. Pushkin entered into an agreement to rent an apartment in a mansion on the Arbat, owned by the noble family of Khitrovo. February 17, 1831, on the eve of the wedding, his Moscow friends gathered at the “bachelor party” at the poet. Here after the wedding in the Temple of the Great Ascension at the Nikitsky Gate A.S. Pushkin brought his young wife. The first three months of the Pushkin’s happy family life passed here.
February 18, 1986, the day of the celebration of the 155th anniversary of the wedding of A.S. Pushkin and N.N. Goncharova, the grand opening of the museum. February 18, 1999 after the restoration of the “Memorial apartment of A.S. Pushkin on the Arbat “again opened the door for visitors.
History
The first references to the land plot date back to 1752, when college adviser Sergei Nero received permission to build a mansion house designed by architect Semyon Karin. The construction of the building began in 1777 and ended by 1780, when stone chambers with a basement were built. In 1806, Neronov sold the property to provincial secretary Nikanor Khitrovo, who in 1810 handed over the land to his son Nikanor Nikanorovich Khitrovo. During the fire of 1812, the building was almost completely destroyed, and by 1816 it was rebuilt.
According to data from the book of the broker of the Prechistensky part, discovered by Sergei Romaniuk in 1980, in 1831, Alexander Pushkin hired the second floor of the Khitrovo house for a period of six months. The cost of housing rental amounted to two thousand rubles in bills. At this time, the owners of the house of the wife of Khitrovo lived in Orel due to the cholera epidemic that spread in Moscow.
An entry from the book of the broker of the Prechistensky part of Anisim Khlebnikov
on January 1831, on the 23rd day, I, the undersigned Mr. tenth grade Alexander Sergeyev son Pushkin, made this condition with the servant of Ms. Safonova Semyon Petrov, son of Semyonov, of the power of attorney given to him from Mr. on the provincial Secretary Nicanor Nikanorova son Khitrova that 1st hired me, Pushkin own Mr. Khitrova house consisting Prechistenskaya of the second quarter under the number 204-m in the parish u. Trinity, on Arbat, a two-story stone with mezzanines and to the adjacent human services, kitchen, laundry, stable, carriage shed, a basement under the house, and there is also a spare barn in the house with furniture according to the attached inventory for a period of six from now on months, and the deadline is from January 22 to July 22of this year, 1831, under an agreement between them for two thousand rubles in state bills, of which amount, upon conclusion of this condition, I, Pushkin, should pay him Semyonov, half, that is, a thousand rubles in bills, and the last half after those months from the conclusion conditions, to accept to me, Mr. Pushkin, the house with all the accessories and furniture according to inventory <...> 6th in the buildings occupied by Pushkin, the rooms of the lower floor of the house are turned off for the housekeeper and Mr. Khitrov’s arrival. To this record of the 10th grade, Alexander Sergeyev, son Pushkin, put CIAM’s hand. F. 14. Op. 7. D. 4190..
On the eve of the wedding on February 17, 1831, Alexander Pushkin invited his closest friends and acquaintances to the celebration of the “bachelor party.” Among those attending the event were the younger brother Lev Pushkin, Prince Pavel Vyazemsky, poet Nikolai Yazykov, memoirist Denis Davydov, philosopher Ivan Kireevsky, composer Alexei Verstovsky and others. The celebration of the wedding continued in the house the day after the wedding of Pushkin and Goncharova in the Church of the Great Ascension. At the gate of the building on Arbat, the newlyweds were met by the patron and the poet’s closest friend Pavel Nashchokin, Pavel Vyazemsky, as well as family and friends of the couple. Ten days after the wedding, the Pushkins gave their first ball. Later, diplomat Alexander Bulgakov, who was present at the event, described that evening as follows:
“The glorious Pushkin set the ball yesterday. Both he and she perfectly treated their guests. She is lovely, and they are like two doves. God grant that this always continues. Everyone danced a lot… The dinner was glorious; it seemed strange to everyone that Pushkin, who lived all in taverns, suddenly got a house.”
Three months later, the Pushkin couple left for Tsarskoye Selo. In 1858, Pavel Boregar was listed as the owner of the plot on the Arbat, and from 1874 to 1914 – the merchants Patrikeev. In 1884-1885, Anatoly Tchaikovsky lived in the rooms of the second floor, who was staying with his elder brother Peter in Moscow. In this house, the brothers celebrated the New Year of 1885 together. Subsequently, on the initiative of the Patrikeevs, the building was used for commercial purposes: on the ground floor there were workshops, shops and shops.
After the revolution of 1917, ownership was transferred to the administration of the Municipal Fund Office, and in 1921 the Red Army Indoor Amateur Theater was located there for several months, for which a hall for 250 seats was equipped on the second floor. The artistic council of the theater included Vladimir Mayakovsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold, and among the young artists was Erast Garin .
In 1920, the mansion on the Arbat passed into the Office of the Municipal Fund. In 1921, for several months in the Arbat house, the Red Army’s Amateur Theater was found a haven, for which a hall for 250 seats was equipped on the second floor. The head of the theater was V.L. Pearl, and the art council included Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vladimir Mayakovsky. The only play staged on Arbat was the play by Ya.B. Princess Sbitenschik, who enjoyed great success. The role of a retired officer Boltay in it was played by a young actor Erast Garin, who had just returned from the Red Army.
Then the house was divided into living rooms – communal apartments. In particular, the famous Pushkin living room became “apartment number 5”. High ceilings made it possible to divide it into two levels and accommodate four families here. By the beginning of the 1970s, 33 families of 72 people lived here. February 12, 1937 by the efforts of the Pushkin Commission, chaired by M.A. Tsavlovsky on the house was installed a memorial plaque of the sculptor E.D. Medvedeva. August 29, 1972, at the initiative of the staff of the State Museum A.S. Pushkin, the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Council of Workers’ Deputies decided to organize ownership of No. 53 on the street. Arbat of the Pushkin Museum. On December 4, 1974, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR decided to include the “Pushkin House on the Arbat” in the list of monuments of national importance.
A year after the compaction policy began, communal apartments were created in the building, by 1970, the family house housed 33 families of 72 people. Because of the high ceilings, Pushkin’s former living room was divided into two levels.
The museum began with a memorial plaque installed on the house at the initiative of the Pushkin Commission, chaired by Mstislav Tsyavlovsky in 1937 and designed by sculptor E. D. Medvedeva. The museum was created in 1972 by order of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, and two years later the mansion was included in the list of monuments of state significance.
Immediately after the decision to establish the museum in the house, large-scale restoration work began, which lasted until 1985. The museum opened to the public on February 18, 1986.
The staff of the Moscow Pushkin Museum has done a huge restoration, organizational and scientific work. Opening of the “A.S. Memorial Apartment” Pushkin on the Arbat “- the only poet’s memorialized museum in Moscow – was held on February 18, 1986.
Exhibition
The exhibition space of the museum occupies two floors of the mansion. On the first is a permanent exhibition “Pushkin and Moscow”, and on the second – the memorial rooms of the Pushkin family . Despite the fact that the authentic furniture was not preserved, the interiors of the rooms were restored according to the memoirs of Pavel Vyazemsky, who often visited the family .
In the front room of the memorial part of the exposition, photographs of the poet’s friends and relatives are presented: Denis Davydov, Pyotr Vyazemsky, poet Nikolai Yazykov, publisher of the Moscow Herald magazine Mikhail Pogodin, Nikolay Yusupov, Evgeny Borotynsky, composer Alexei Verstovsky. The museum owns the piano acquired by Sergei Rachmaninoff, which is used at museum musical evenings.
In the second memorial hall was the Pushkin’s dining room, now there is a desk — a desk with a copy of one of the poet’s poems, a copy of Pushkin’s portrait by Vasily Tropinin, made by Avdotya Elagina by order of Sergei Sobolevsky. The next room is dedicated to Natalia Goncharova, it exhibits an authentic table, previously owned by the poet’s wife, and portraits of Pushkin and Goncharova, painted by Peter Sokolov and Ivan Makarov in 1836 and 1849, respectively. The last two memorial rooms – a former family bedrooms, which are stored copies of handwritten sheets of Pushkin, including the works of “Eugene Onegin”.
In 2015, the museum received a copy of the monument to Catherine II, the original as a gift to the empress was made by the great-grandfather Athanasius Goncharova in 1788. For several reasons, the monument was never sent, and subsequently passed to Pushkin as a dowry. In 1836, the poet sold Franz Bird by the alloy foundry for three thousand bank notes.
Collection
The museum exposition occupies the entire Arbat house, its two floors. On the ground floor, where the apartment of the owners of the house, the Khitrovo family, was located, a literary exposition unfolds, revealing the theme “A. Pushkin and Moscow. ” Here, the poet’s complex, diverse connections with the retired capital, with its way of life, culture, art, with its people were reflected. Engravings, watercolors, genuine objects of the 19th century tell about theaters, salons, musical life, artists, writers and poets, with whom A.S. was familiar Pushkin. A special place is given to books, almanacs, journals of the Pushkin era, Moscow editions of the poet himself.
The memorial center of the museum is located on the second floor, its heart is Pushkin’s rooms. From January to May 1831, A.S. lived here. Pushkin, weddings were held here and the first months of a happy and intense married life passed. Memorial rooms are almost empty. A few empire-style decor elements were introduced into spacious, ceremonial halls with typeset parquet: elegant heavy curtains reconstructed from the models of the 1830s, bronze and crystal chandeliers, gilded sconces, candelabra, girandols, vases. But the main thing in the exposition of the second floor is what A.S. remembers Pushkin: walls of the house, window openings, stoves, space of rooms, memorial items of the poet and his family.
A special section of the exposition is two gift wardrobes located in the lobby of the first floor. Objects are exhibited here – portraits of acquaintances A.S. Pushkin, illustrations for his works, arts and crafts, books, which were donated to the Moscow House of Pushkin by admirers of the great Russian poet and grateful visitors. The presented gifts to the museum, updated every six months, symbolize an active love for A.S. Pushkin of our contemporaries.
A.S. Pushkin and Moscow
The first hall is devoted to the architectural appearance of Moscow and the urban life of the first third of the XIX century. The gallery of fashionable pictures, genre scenes and specific sketches on lithographs and engravings of the 1810s and 1830s help to present the diversity of Moscow streets, hear the many voices of bazaars, the noise of street festivals, the cries of street vendors, French babble of discharged fashionistas and dandy dandies. The second room is devoted to the theatrical, musical, and artistic life of Moscow in the 1820s and 1830s, to the friendly and secular ties of A.S. Pushkin. The hall reconstructed the atmosphere of the front living room. In such living rooms, which were in almost every house of the Jews, they listened to music, put on home performances and live pictures, read aloud, and discussed the news. In the third hall
lifetime editions of books and portraits of Moscow writers and journalists with which A.S. Pushkin was friends, corresponded, was connected by common literary interests.
The interior of the study was recreated in the hall, objects are exhibited here, telling about Moscow publications and publications of the works of A.S. Pushkin. In the fourth hall, the magazines published in Moscow in the first half of the 19th century are displayed: Herald of Europe, Moscow Herald, Moscow Telegraph, European, Telescope, Ladies’ Journal. It tells about Moscow journalism and the role of A.S. Pushkin in its formation. The fifth hall contains historical realities illustrating the circumstances of A.S. Pushkin in Moscow in late 1830 – early 1831.
The most important creative event of the first days of 1831 was for A.S. Pushkin’s publication of the tragedy of Boris Godunov. The hall features a rare edition of Boris Godunov and responses to the tragedy that appeared in Petersburg and Moscow magazines.
A whole range of materials is dedicated to the poet’s close friends – A. Delvig and P. Vyazemsky, as well as to participants in the “bachelor party” arranged by A.S. Pushkin on the eve of the wedding. The sixth hall of the exposition presents objects telling about the noble family of Khitrovo, the owners of the house on Arbat, where the poet rented his first family apartment. A unique exhibit, a model of the monument to Catherine II – “Copper Grandmother” recalls the circumstances of the preparation of A.S. Pushkin to the wedding and dowry of the bride.
In the seventh hall a number of documents and objects related to the Goncharov family are exhibited: portraits, maps, furniture from the Linen Factory estate. A particularly valuable exhibit is the wax model of A.N. Goncharova, made at the end of the XVIII century.
Another theme of the hall is the wedding of A.S. Pushkin and N.N. Goncharova. Two documents tell us about the wedding rite: “The Marriage Search” and the entry in the Metric Book of the Church, the Great Ascension about marriage.
The eighth hall presents materials telling about the life of the poet in Moscow after the wedding and his Moscow friends, with whom he spoke in the winter and spring of 1831.
The views of St. Petersburg and its environs, completing the exposition of the first floor, allow you to see the places where the Pushkin family was serving on May 15, 1831, having left the house on Arbat forever.
Memorial rooms of the A.S.Pushkin’s family
The brokerage book of the Prechistensky part of the broker Anisim Khlebnikov of 1831 (dummy) is exhibited in the entrance hall, a room with access to the main staircase. It is disclosed on the record of the contract of employment A.S. Pushkin’s apartment in Khitrovo’s house on Arbat, made on January 23, 1831.
On February 17, 1831, a noisy “bachelor party” was arranged in the Large Living Room, the grand hall of the mansion, the next day, February 18, a wedding dinner was ceremoniously held, and on February 27 the young Pushkin couple received guests who gathered for their first family ball. On the walls are portraits of those who came to this house, with whom A.S. Pushkin talked in the pre-wedding and post-wedding months.
The hall is crowned by the image of the Moscow Kremlin, made by the artist F. Alekseev, and a sculptural image of the poet, greeting those who enter the living room. An authentic Pushkin desk from the collection of the Pushkin All-Russian Museum in St. Petersburg is exhibited in the central hall – a symbol of writing, inspired poetry. Above the desk is a small copy from the portrait of A.S. Pushkin’s work by V. Tropinin, performed by a good friend of the poet A. Elagina. At the desk – an inkwell in the form of an arapochka. In the corner hall there is an elegant table for needlework, which belonged to Natalya Nikolaevna, the poet’s wife, and who was once on the estate “Linen Factory”.
The hall presents a portrait of Natalya Nikolaevna, made by the artist I. Makarov in 1849 and a canvas by an unknown artist of the 17th century “Madonna and Child in Her Arms”.
The front suite is completed by three living rooms with low ceilings and windows overlooking the courtyard. Here was a quiet everyday life, not intended for the prying eyes. In these “family” rooms, the memorial items of children and grandchildren A.S. Pushkin. In the window of the first hall are presented the memorials of Alexander Alexandrovich Pushkin, Maria Alexandrovna Gartung, Grigory Alexandrovich Pushkin and Natalia Alexandrovna von Merenberg. The second room contains photographs and objects belonging to the poet’s grandchildren. In the third hall – a collective photograph of the living descendants of the poet, taken in the walls of this house in 2009 at the First World Congress of the Descendants of A.S. Pushkin.
State A.S.Pushkin Museum
State Museum A.S. Pushkin today is one of the recognized cultural centers of Moscow and Russia. In addition to the main museum, the GMP includes five more branches: A.S. Memorial Apartment Pushkin on the Arbat, A. Bely Memorial Apartment on the Arbat, I.S. House Museum Turgenev on Ostozhenka, House Museum of V.L. Pushkin on Old Basmannaya and Exhibition Halls in Denezhny Lane. The main museum complex is located in a wonderful architectural monument of the beginning of the 19th century – the city noble estate of the Khrushchev-Seleznev on ul. Prechistenka, 12/2.
The historical mansion houses permanent expositions “Pushkin and his era” and “Pushkin’s Tales”, exhibition halls, a reading room, concert and conference halls. Here, on Prechistenka, there are funds of the museum with open storage of rare books, paintings, graphic and miniature portraits of the 18th-19th centuries, porcelain, bronze, art glass and ceramics, genealogical materials. The GMP Open Storage includes unique private collections donated to the Moscow Museum of A.S. Pushkin – “Library of Russian poetry of I.N. Rozanov”, “P.V. Collection Gubara “,” Cabinet T.A. Mavrina and N.V. Kuzmina ”,“ Cabinet of drawings by Nadia Rusheva ”. The Atrium is intended for large-scale cultural events – a manor courtyard covered with a glass dome, combining the museum complex in a single space in 1999, to mark the 200th anniversary of A.S. Pushkin.
Museum town
Museum Town – a project to expand the Pushkin Museum, dedicated to the centenary of the opening of the Pushkin Museum. In 2008, the museum management announced the first competition for the design of the museum quarter, in which the bureau of British architect Norman Foster won. According to the plan presented, the town was supposed to stretch from the Kropotkinskaya metro station to Borovitskaya square, part of the streets would become pedestrian, and on the territory of the Golitsyn estate and the Kremlin gas stationwould build a glass exhibition “five leaf”. Since the project involved the demolition of some historical buildings, the bureau presented in 2012 an updated project. However, a year later, Foster refused to participate in the project.
In the second architectural competition announced in 2014, the Rhizosphere program was won by the Meganom Bureau, which is led by Yuri Grigoryan. According to the plan, nine museums, an exhibition hall, a depository, a depository, as well as public areas will be created in the town. According to the plan, the area of the cultural cluster should be 105,000 m². Initially, the construction was planned to be completed by 2023, but in July 2019 it became known about a two-year shift in the timing of reconstruction.