Anton Chekhov’s House Museum

The Moscow Memorial Museum of Anton Chekhov is believed to be the second largest and important one after his House Museum in Yalta. “I live in Kudrino, opposite the gymnasium No. 4, in Korneev’s house looking like a chest of drawers. The house color is liberal, i.e. red”, the classical author wrote in one of his letters. He also called it a “chest of drawers” due to the house shape. The writer lived in a wing on Sadovo-Kudrinskaya from August 1886 until his departure to Sakhalin in April 1890. Here he wrote such plays as Ivanov, The Wood Demon, The Bear, Marriage Proposal, The Wedding, A Tragedian in Spite of Himself, Tatiana Repina; novellas The Steppe, Lights, A Dreary Story, and many short stories. He accepted here famous artists, writers and actors of that time.

The museum was opened in the house in 1954. The interior has been restored based on the drawings and memories of the writer’s sister and brother and provides the visitors with the opportunity to imagine the everyday life of yet modest family, whose main income was literacy work of Anton Chekhov. Some personal belongings of Chekhov are presented in the rooms: a writing desk, a pair of candlesticks in the form of dragons, fishing gear, and an inkwell with a figure of a horse. Lifetime publications of the classical author, a collection of rare photographs, articles once owned by the family, a collection of theater posters and phototypes deserve special attention.

Photo: mos.ru