Pushkin’s favourite streets: Recalling places connected to the poet
(11).jpg)
Key events in Alexander Pushkin’s life are connected with Russia’s capital city. He was born here, wed Natalya Goncharova and, of course, wrote some of his great works. Here he hurried down Moscow streets to balls and meetings with friends, and made return trips back here from his Mikhailovskoye estate.
To mark the poet’s 221st birthday the Moscow Committee for Tourism and the #Moscowwithyou (#Москвастобой) project will talk about places in Moscow of which the poet was fond.
The poet’s first home and strolls in Moscow
The future poet was born on the corner of Malaya Pochtovaya Street and Gospitalny Pereulok. The Pushkin family back then rented an apartment in the Skvortsovs’ house. Alexander Pushkin himself was not quite sure when speaking about his birthplace, however, his biographers are certain that it was Nemetskaya Sloboda. Although the wooden structure burnt down in the 1812 fire, it is believed to have been on the site of modern house No.4.
Little Alexander was baptised in the Epiphany Cathedral in Yelokhovo. The building of the refectory where the rite was held remains intact even today.
The Pushkin family moved often but they preferred the area between Bolshoi Kharitonyevsky Pereulok and Chistye Prudy. Alexander Pushkin and his parents used to stroll down Khomutovsky Pereulok on their way to church, took walks in the garden here and visited his grandmother, Maria Gannibal. These childhood memories were often reflected in the poet’s works: a small one-storied house located on the corner of Bolshoi and Maly Kharitonovsky pereuloks appeared on the pages of Eugene Onegin.
The poet’s uncle, Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, also lived in Moscow in a mansion on Staraya Basmannaya Street. Once, upon his arrival from Mikhailovskoye, Alexander went to an Emperor’s reception and later visited his uncle. Currently Vasily Pushkin’s yellow one-storied house on Staraya Basmannaya Street hosts a chamber museum.
Get-togethers, wedding and balls
A house on Povarskaya Street owned by Count Sheremetev was a centre of literary critique back in the 1820s. It was there in 1828 that Pushkin read chapters from his poem Poltava to his friends Colonel Sergei Kiselev, Pyotr Vyazemsky and Count Fyodor Tolstoy.
Pushkin also met his would-be wife Natalya Goncharova in Moscow. In December 1828, they met at a ball at the home of the Kologrivovs on Tverskoi Boulevard. Several months later Pushkin proposed to her. Natalya’s mother would not agree to the marriage for a long time, however, two years later, on 2 March 1831, the wedding ceremony was held in the church by Nikitskye Vorota.
Following their wedding, the newlyweds moved into a cosy rented apartment on Arbat Street. It had five rooms with a bedroom and a reception room. Pushkin and Goncharova lived there for three months, but often received guests and arranged balls. A memorial museum opened there in the 1970s and is still operating to this day.
The centre of high life at that time was the estate of Princes Baryatinsky, which was bought by Alexander Khrushchev. The newly built house became a venue for regular balls frequented by the poet. In the 20th century, unlike other real estate once belonging to nobility, it was not demolished and was turned into a museum. First it featured a display of toys, after which it then became an exhibition hall for Mayakovsky’s works. From 1957 on the estate was dedicated to Pushkin.
Forty-three years after the poet’s death, on 6 June 1880, a monument to him was unveiled on Strastnaya (currently Pushkin Square). It features Pushkin in a meditative pose with his head bowing. The monument fits in so harmonically with Moscow’s layout that it is impossible to imagine Tverskaya Street without it. Even though the sculpture was moved to the opposite side of the street in 1950, the monument crafted by Alexander Opekushin still remains a landmark for all the poet’s fans.
Another Pushkin monument can be viewed in the courtyard of sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov’s workshop located near Novy Arbaty Street.