Apartment-museum of Pushkin (Moika, 12)

The story of the life and death of the greatest Russian poet has always interested his many admirers. Make a genius icon or see in it a person - a personal choice of each of us. For representatives of the second category there is a museum of Pushkin in St. Petersburg.

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Pushkin did not have his own house or apartment in St. Petersburg. The mansion on the Moika Embankment, 12, not far from Stable Bridge, belonged to the princes of Volkonsky - they have a poet and rented 11 rooms, which he drove with his family in September 1836.

This apartment was the last refuge of the poet: he lived here for only about five months. The walls of the house where Pushkin's apartment-museum (Moika, 12) is now located, witnessed a sad drama that led to the death of the great Russian poet. Mortally wounded in a duel, he died here on February 10, 1837, having punished his wife to observe mourning for two years, and then to marry a decent man.

According to numerous evidences, the poet did not hold harm to his wife: he was always affectionate with her, always tried to protect her. She touched her husband touchingly until the last hours of his life. The wave of hatred and blame that struck a young woman after the poet's death was hardly deserved.

Long road to the museum

The events of the last months of life are devoted to the exposition, the path of which was rather thorny. The fact that one day opens at the address: Moika, 12, a museum-apartment of Pushkin, in those distant times no one knew. Immediately after the death of the poet, many things were transferred to his friends and relatives, and the family moved to a village estate.

New tenants moved into the Volkonsky mansion. After 1900 it was converted into a profitable house (there were a lot of lodgers), and after the 1917 revolution it was a communal kingdom. Many objects of everyday life and environment were irretrievably lost.

For a long time there have been attempts to organize the Pushkin Museum. Sink, 12 - the address that was perfect for this. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, the Pushkin House was created under the Imperial Academy of Sciences, which was entrusted with the mission to collect disparate exhibits. His employees managed to buy from the grandson of the poet a library (3,700 volumes) - she is represented today in the museum. Negotiations were also conducted with the Parisian admirer of Pushkin (as they would say now, a fan). He gathered in his apartment an impressive collection of personal belongings, autographs, portraits of the poet and his family. These things began to return to their homeland only after the death of the collector, in 1925.

By the grain

The staff of the museum are real enthusiasts of their business. All that could be found in various funds, was carefully collected. According to the surviving evidence and documents, the apartment in which the Pushkin Museum is located (Moika, 12) has been restored as much as possible under modern conditions.

Some things are really preserved. In the locker there is a carafe of ruby glass, in which the poet kept his favorite Madera, and next to him on the tray are the remains of family silver: a spoon and a ladle. Behind the glass, you can see a tiny shirt in which the son of the poet was baptized, and a piece of cloth that was walled with walls (the wallpaper was not practiced in those days).

With special love, the study and library of the poet were reproduced. There are over 4 thousand volumes, which he personally collected, as well as about ten thousand books in 17 languages.

Preserved and the desk of Pushkin, his favorite "Voltaire" chair with a dark pink upholstery, a trunk and a checker, donated by friends. Another exhibit that is rightfully proud of the Pushkin Museum (St. Petersburg, Moika, 12) is the poet's favorite inkpot, decorated with a figure of an arachka in golden trousers and with a pickax. Alexander Sergeevich himself was proud of his origin, never missed a chance to emphasize the characteristic features of his appearance, so he liked the trinket.

The original pen, which the poet held in his hands, is placed in a sealed box with a transparent lid. Apparently, to hold on to the "magic" office belonged to many willing.

Emperor's subjects

There are also several walking sticks in the office with which Pushkin traveled along the pavements of the Northern capital. Among them - his favorite, of bamboo, with a button of Peter I instead of a knob. Contrary to everything that the poet was told in Soviet schools, he was not at all such a fighter against tsarism. Yes, and the monarch did not atrocity beyond any measure - to the rulers of the USSR he was very far away.

It is known that Pushkin, on his deathbed, asked Nicholas I for forgiveness for a duel and received a merciful answer with the obligation not to leave the forgotten family of the poet. This note keeps among its exhibits the Pushkin Museum. Sink, 12 - the last address of the poet, so the letter is in place.

By the way, the emperor kept his promise, thereby creating a new round of gossip about his love affair with Natalia Nikolaevna (with whom only this always pregnant woman was not tied up). Apparently, the rights of Monica Bellucci, saying that people can forgive a person's mind and even talent, but not beauty.

Exposition of the museum

Among the exhibits of the museum, lifelong portraits of the poet and his contemporaries, belonging to the brush of famous Russian artists, are of great value. Separate attention deserves the paintings of famous painters - Aivazovsky, Repin, Myasoedov, etc., dedicated to the Pushkin theme.

Now the Pushkin Museum (Moika, 12) includes 9 rooms. Downstairs, on the ground floor, two rooms are devoted to the opening memorial exposition - the guide introduces visitors to the last months of the poet's life, with the chain of events that led him to the Black River. Here you can see the original of an anonymous insulting letter that Pushkin received (and believed that he was sent by Dantes), portraits of seconds, a copy of the call (and the conditions of the fight), and a pair of dueling pistols.

The exposition of the museum is constructed logically: the drama unfolds from hall to room and ends in the smallest room in which there was a coffin with the body of the deceased poet. Many admirers came here to say goodbye to him, immediately there is a death mask, a medallion with a locus of a poet's hair. Such an unusual request was made by Turgenev - the museum (Moika, 12) demonstrating his note, according to which hair was cut off on the second day after the death of the poet by his valet, who thus earned gold. At the wall opposite, behind the glass, you can see a waistcoat and a white glove, in which Alexander Sergeevich was shooting.

The reason for the duel

It must be said that the entire history of the duel is not so simple and sketchy as it is described to schoolchildren. The role of Natalia Nikolaevna in the tragic history of some hotheads interpreted as negative, but, according to the numerous characteristics of contemporaries, she was a quiet woman, the secularism was by no means shining. During the birth of the "stormy romance" with Dantes Goncharova once again waited for the child - and her pregnancy was not entirely cloudless.

Perhaps the state of Pushkin was influenced by the situation in the world: a whirlwind of dirty insinuations swirled around his wife, that he felt obliged to react to it.

Truth and myths

The anonymous libel that Pushkin received and several of his friends, where the poet was called "cuckold", became the decisive reason for the duel. Alexander Sergeevich attributed the authorship to the young Heeckeren, but the true culprit could not be ascertained to this day. Numerous biographers are multiplying versions.

Some are accused of what happened Idalya Poletika (second cousin of Natalia Nikolaevna). Say, it was she had an affair with Dantes, and the naive Pushkin served as an intriguer with a cover, for which the poet paid him undeservedly.

Others "agreed" to frankly delusional versions that Heeckeren was a foreign spy, and Pushkin undertook to eliminate it, since he had a relationship with the secret service.

Trust the professionals

To hear a coherent version of what happened from the lips of experts, you need to go to the address: Moika, 12. Pushkin's apartment, which became his last haven, can tell a lot to a man who is ready to watch and listen. Tourists in the museum deserve the highest praise. By itself, it is quite small, so they are mainly served by excursions.

As a result of the only strictness that the Museum of Pushkin established (Moika, 12), photos of the exhibits that are in the basement room can not be seen on numerous Internet resources - here shooting is prohibited. In other rooms you can use a camera or a camera, for this you will have to pay a symbolic sum for the present times.

The museum works daily, from half-past eleven to six in the evening, on Tuesdays it's Tuesday. It should be borne in mind that the ticket office is open until 17.00, after that time you can not get inside any more, so it's better to plan a hike in the first half of the day.