Alexander Pushkin House Museum
source: encspb.ru |
St. Petersburg citizens are proud to live in the city where the luminary of Russian Poetry, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, lived and worked. Located in St. Petersburg in the house number 12 on Moika is his house museum. From there Pushkin went off to take part in the fatal duel with d’Anthes, there he was brought to afterwards with lethal wounds. There he died on January 29, 1837. The museum was opened in 1937 on the centennial of the death of the great poet; by that time several rooms of his house were renovated. The house plan drawn by the poet Vladimir Zhukovsky was the basis of the reconstruction work. Even more serious restoration of the house started only in the early 1960s. During the period the dining room and pantry, the bedroom and the living room were completed. In the 1980s the rooms of servants, the Goncharov sisters, and the nursery were renovated. The final works were finished by 1999.
The central place of the museum is occupied by the poet’s study. There Pushkin finished his story «The Captain's Daughter», worked on «The History of Peter the Great», and wrote his last poem. In the poet's study visitors can see the collection of over 4,000 books in different languages, the desk and chair belonging to Pushkin as well as a number of his personal belongings - the inkpot with a negro boy, the feather, the vest which the poet wore on the duel with d’Anthes. In addition, the memorial museum displays Pushkin’s death mask and the medallion with a lock of his hair. You can also see the portraits of Pushkin and his wife, his children and friends in the museum.
In the yard of the house 12,Moika the monument to Alexander Pushkin was opened in 1950. The house itself has the memorial plaque reminding that here lived and died the most famous poet of Russia. Pushkin House Museum is a part of the All-Russian Pushkin Museum that opened on the day of the 150-th anniversary of the great Russian poet’s birth. Other expositions are located in branches: the House Museum of Alexander Pushkin, the Memorial School Museum, and Alexander Pushkin Dacha Museum.