The work of F. M. Dostoevsky, who spent most of his hectic life in St. Petersburg, is known and appreciated by the whole world. And the great writer was born and raised in Moscow. It was created in 1928, the apartment-museum of Dostoevsky. She recreates with a high degree of certainty the atmosphere in which little Fedya lived with his parents and brothers.
Where is the museum
On the street Dostoevsky, d. 2, is the museum-apartment of Dostoevsky, whose address we have already indicated. In pre-revolutionary Russia, there was the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, which was established by the wife of the late Paul I. The strict classical stone building with a colonnade was built by I. Zhilyardi and A. Mikhailov in 1806 according to the design of D. Quarenghi.
The hospital has changed its purpose these days. True, she remained a medical institution, which fit the
Scientific Research Institute of Phthisiopulmonology and the Russian Society of Phthisiologists. Novaya Bozhedomka Street, as Dostoevsky Street was called until 1954, is located in the very center.
What did young Fedor see from childhood
New Bozhedomka in the XIX century was not a prestigious place. It was a rather provincial area outside the Boulevard Ring. Suddenly dead people found on the street, who were killed in fights or robbery, as well as suicides, were brought to God's house. Beggars or very poor patients rushed to such charitable institutions, long lines lined up from them. For the Dostoevsky brothers, this was a familiar picture. Contrary to the prohibitions of the parents, they communicated with a vengeance. At the hospital yard of Bozhedomka, young, “humiliated and insulted” people began to enter the life of young Fedor. He was particularly shocked in his youth by the story of a raped girl. This real life episode entered his work as a motive for a defiled and desecrated childhood trampled into the mud. So from an early age Fedor Mikhailovich studied compassion.
How did the museum begin?
After the death of Fyodor Mikhailovich in 1881, his widow Anna Grigoryevna began to actively collect all manuscripts, books, letters, photographs, and personal belongings. More than a thousand exhibits were placed in 1889 in the repository of the Historical Museum in Moscow. It was a museum in memory of F. M. Dostoevsky. However, he was unable to attract the attention of the general public, since he existed in isolation from the memorial space. During the revolutionary storms, many documents were lost. So, it is still unknown where the white and draft manuscripts of the novel The Brothers Karamazov are located. So that everyone could see the place where the childhood and adolescence of the future writer passed, it was decided to create an apartment-museum of Dostoevsky, and it was opened in Moscow in 1928.
Relocation
The former military doctor Mikhail Andreevich, the father of a large family in the future, worked as a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.
In the meantime, in 1821, when the family occupies a small room in the right wing, the second son Fedenka was born. Two years later, the whole family moves to the first floor of the left, northern outbuilding, where Dostoevsky’s museum apartment is now located. They were allotted only two rooms, a kitchen and an entrance hall. There are two more rooms, but their purpose is unknown.
How does the inspection begin?
First of all, the visitor meets the first mention of Fyodor Dostoevsky, reading an entry in the Book of the Baptized and the Funeral in the Hospital Church of Peter and Paul. The name of the baby is adjacent to those who lay and died in the hospital: a soldier, a retired captain, the wife of a monastery minister, a courtyard released into the wild.
In what conditions did the family live?
The everyday side was carefully described by the younger brother of Fyodor Mikhailovich, which allowed to restore a simple and modest home environment in the Dostoevsky Museum in Moscow. The front one leads to the dining room, or “working room”, the walls of which were painted yellow, and the windows overlook the hospital courtyard and Bozhedomka.
There are armchairs, an oval table, ombre tables, a sofa, a mahogany wall cupboard - a discreet Empire style, which allowed to preserve the noble dignity. A family was gathering at the dinner table with seven children. On the walls there are images that date back to the early nineteenth century and are associated with memories of a visit to the Kremlin, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. And in the evenings, tales of the nanny Alyona Frolovna sounded in this room. Fedor Mikhailovich recalled that already at the age of three he himself tried to compose intricate and scary stories.
Behind a wooden partition
The children's room was separated from the entrance by a wooden partition. There were two chests in it, on which Mikhail and Fedor slept. The room was a bit dark. It is stored in the Dostoevsky Museum in Moscow.
Start of training
On the ombre table lies the Bible, revealed in the Book of Job, published in 1815. All the Old Testament stories were read to children by their beloved mother, Maria Fedorovna, who came out of the merchants' environment and grew up in Borovsk. She was the first teacher of her children.
The first textbook for all the children was One Hundred and Four Sacred Stories. Fyodor Mikhailovich did not part with a copy of this book and kept it his whole life, like a shrine. There are also a few children's toys in which children played under the supervision of a mother who was engaged in needlework. This is one of the two rooms in the apartment-museum of Dostoevsky.
Living room
This room is connected to the dining room. In the family, she played an important role. It is also very significant for the museum-apartment of F. M. Dostoevsky in Moscow. It contains all the genuine things that Fedor Mikhailovich touched.
In the living room there is a sofa, in front of which there is an oval table on a small carpet. Around him are armchairs, as well as a bookcase, in the corner - a table with a guitar. Having learned to read, children freely chose their favorite books. After dinner in the apartment, everything calmed down so as not to disturb the sleep of his father, resting on the couch, when his working day in the hospital was over. Having rested, in the evening, father continued to work: he wrote stories of patients, prescribed medications. At this time, no one bothered him with loud conversations or noise either. When the unmarried mother’s brother came to their house, he picked up the guitar. Maria Fedorovna played along with her brother on the second instrument.
They sang Russian songs and romances. The family also loved it when everyone gathered at the table in the evening and read aloud the novels, poetry and prose of A. Pushkin, the “History” of Karamzin.
Now the museum-apartment of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky seeks to convey all the moments of the writer’s personality formation, therefore, in addition to household items, emphasis is placed on the spiritual life of the writer. A desk was transported from Petersburg to Moscow, at which he wrote the chapters of the “Brothers Karamazov,” his personal ink device, his glasses, and business cards. There are also illustrations for his works, genuine photographs of the writer's family members. The museum, located on Dostoevsky Street, is happy to welcome everyone who is interested in the work of a genius and conducts not only excursions, but also thematic evenings.