It is located in a remarkable architectural monument of the early 19th century – the city noble estate of the Khrushchev-Seleznyovs.
In the museum’s foyer there is a huge portrait of the founder of the modern Russian language. On the left is the young Pushkin. On the right is the poet in his maturity. Moldovan Russian specialist Alena Bogach tells RG that she also likes to take her students to the Pushkin Museum. Only in my native Chisinau.
– When I arrive I will tell them: “Children, get ready, we have a program of excursions. Musical exhibitions and theatre evenings are being prepared there.
And he adds: “We are proud that a great Russian genius visited our country in exile, on a business trip. And there, according to one version, Pushkin met a great Russian genius. Gypsy – the image of Zemfira from “Gypsy”.
The tour of the historic house begins.
And Alexander Sergeevich could come here as a guest to balls. From the main entrance, the guide invites the teachers to the ballroom, “where Onegin once came.”
In this bright place with beautiful parquet floors, Pushkin’s contemporaries danced fashionable dances: polonaise, mazurka, cotillion. Then they danced the two-beat waltz.
The teachers listen with pleasure to the story about Pushkin’s Lyceum period of life. “He read a lot of things that we had never heard of,” says Pushkin, the poet’s Lyceum friend.
Children, just like their modern peers, also loved to play pranks. One day Pushkin and his friends decided to cook eggnog. In addition to eggs and sugar, a bottle of rum was added to the dessert.
The high school students were watched by the man on duty, during lunch they were seated far away from the others so that they had less food and during afternoon prayer they were forced to kneel.
“Modern schoolchildren,” the guide shares his experience, “once admitted that they would prefer corporal punishment rather than being deprived of food.”
Teachers laugh…
In the Onegin Room, someone draws attention to a bottle of wine from the comet of 1811, which is described in Eugene Onegin. The comet was considered a harbinger of the war of 1812. The wine cost as much as 17 rubles. In comparison, the guide explains, a cow costs 20 rubles and a serf 200.
– They say that Pushkin was a great lover of women?
“It is not like that,” the guide denies the falsifications. – The poet liked to present himself as a lover of women.
“Men are always the same,” says the female half of the group.
In the last room, Pushkin’s teachers examine Pushkin’s pen.
“There is a suspicion that Pushkin had a habit of chewing feathers,” the guide explains, pointing to a broken feather. “Or it was poorly preserved.”
With great anticipation, the teachers surround the display case containing the poet’s death mask.
Pushkin the inspector
Lecturers inspired by the Russian classic are invited to the lecture hall.
The chief employee of the museum, Olga Ustinova, chose a very interesting fragment from Pushkin’s life – how the poet set out on a journey to the places where Pugachev rebelled. In 1833, Alexander Sergeevich went to Orenburg, where he hoped to collect additional materials about the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev for the story “The Captain’s Daughter”. In Nizhny Novgorod, the poet was personally received by General Mikhail Petrovich Buturlin, a participant in the Battle of Borodino, who was then the governor.
Buturlin thought that Pushkin was going to Orenburg not in vain, but on a secret inspection mission. Arriving in Orenburg, Pushkin learns that he has been mistaken for an auditor.
Olga Ustinova also talks about the famous meeting between Pushkin and Vladimir Dahl. Russian scholars remember the name of the famous lexicographer with pleasure. Local young women were no less interested in literature than those from the capital. They were so obsessed with curiosity about how the meeting between Dahl and Pushkin was going that they climbed a tree and tried to see Pushkin from above.
On this amazing journey, Pushkin was mistaken for the auditor, the Antichrist, and the stationmaster.
“Pushkin is ours,” say Russian academics from Kazakhstan, explaining that they are from Uralsk. – Every time we tell children about the poet, we show them the places where Pugachev went: Yaik, Ural. These are our places. By the way, there is a Pushkin museum in Uralsk.
“You cannot divide Pushkin and be jealous,” Najafova Dilruba, a Russian specialist from Azerbaijan, intervenes in the conversation. – He is our common heritage. Although Pushkin gave special respect to the Caucasus. I am just from the city of Shamakhi, from Shamakhi of the “Golden Cockerel.”
Admiring the Khrustalev-Seleznev mansion, Russian Cuba expert Cruz-Cáceres Sayli de las Mercedes comments:
– Unfortunately, there is no Pushkin Museum in Havana. There was a monument to Pushkin, but imagine, it was stolen.
However, the Pushkin Room appeared in the National Library of Havana. It was opened by “Russian World”. There is also a poets’ café or a poets’ house. They also created a Pushkin corner there, where books and photographs of the poet are kept. We organize creative evenings there. Students often visit this place, the poet’s love lyrics resonate with them, they find Pushkin a friend and advisor, especially when we analyze Tatyana’s letter and Onegin’s reply to Tatyana. It is easier for them to learn “great and mighty”. By the way. I had a student who looked very much like Pushkin and he was very proud of it.
