Mikhailovskoye is an estate owned by the mother of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, Nadezhda Osipovna Pushkina, nee Hannibal. Not far from it is the place where Pushkin is buried. Mikhailovskoye is a small, cozy and very poor estate, consisting of several small villages and a large neglected park with shady alleys and a dark forest lake, lost among a dense bush and tall fir trees. A small and very modest outwardly manor house stands on the steep bank of the Sorot River. A wonderful panorama opens from the terrace, as if created by a painter’s brush. Two lakes, meadows and fields on the other side, a dense forest stretching along Lake Bolshoi to the neighboring Petrovskoye estate, which was owned by a cousin, mother’s uncle, Petr Abramovich Hannibal. These lands in the Pskov province were once granted to the poet’s great-grandfather, the famous Arap Peter, Abram Petrovich Hannibal.
Pushkin's pedigree is interesting and atypical for a Russian nobleman. On the father’s side, he belonged to the old noble family of the Pushkins, once quite influential and wealthy, and on the mother’s side he was a descendant of black Abyssinian princes, whose little son was captured and presented to the Russian Tsar as a “souvenir”. Tsar Peter 1 raised the boy as a Russian nobleman, educated him and endowed him with considerable land, and in order to finally consolidate the position of a stranger on Russian soil, he married a representative of an ancient boyar clan. So, thick and hot Abyssinian blood firmly mixed with northern Russian.
Pushkin was very fond of Mikhailovsky. A cozy small estate, wonderful neighbors with whom he maintained friendly relations, and also very beautiful, as if by order created surrounding nature, inspired creativity. For the poet and the net neg for this poet became this corner of the earth. Here, near the walls of the Svyatogorsky monastery, there is a place where Pushkin is buried. The poet himself chose the plot of land for his burial and bought it in 1836, when he last visited these places. Telling his friend P. Nashchokin about this, Pushkin half-jokingly declared that he had bought for himself a wonderful place with good soft sandy soil, in a quiet and secluded corner, far from the "hustle" and crowded city cemeteries.
Near the place where Pushkin is buried, is the grave of his mother Nadezhda Osipovna and his younger brother, who died in early childhood. A small family cemetery is really located in a convenient place, under the canopy of trees, next to the main monastery cathedral, where the poet was buried in the winter of 1837. Recently, the Svyatogorsky monastery was returned to the church, it is functioning again, but access to the poet’s grave is not blocked. An endless chain of pilgrims and admirers of his work stretches here, who pay tribute to the poet's love and eternal memory. It is very significant that in the place where Pushkin is buried, there is no grandiose monument, a magnificent tombstone. The keepers of the museum in Mikhailovsky and the graves of the poet in Svyatogorye decided to leave the tombstone, which was established by the widow Natalya Nikolaevna. This is a modest but tastefully made low white stele towering above a small pedestal with a semicircular grotto. Perhaps her only decoration is fresh flowers, constantly lying nearby.
Another great poet of Russia, whose fate was somehow mysteriously interwoven with his similarity to Pushkin's, M. Yu. Lermontov, also found his repose far from the bustle of the city. After the tragic death in a duel, the poet’s ashes were transferred to the estate of his grandmother Tarhan near Penza. The place where Lermontov is buried is the family crypt of the Arsenyev family, the kind to which the poet’s mother belonged. There is something special and unusual in this that the two great men of Russia do not rest in public places, under heavy pompous tombstones, but on quiet village graveyards, next to members of their families.