5 museums dedicated to Russian writers outside of Russia
Many famous authors have lived and worked abroad, but the addresses of the places where they stayed are often marked only by memorial plaques. But, there are exceptions.
1. House-Museum of Alexander Pushkin, Chișinău (Moldova)
There are several museums dedicated to Russia’s main poet in the post-Soviet space (eg. Vilnius, Odessa), but one of the most notable ones is located in the capital of Moldova.
In 1820, the poet served part of his southern exile in a small one-story merchant's house, where he was sent by the tsar for his free-thinking poems. The museum was opened there in 1948 and is based on the memorabilia related to his stay in Moldova.
2. Chekhov Museum, Badenweiler (Germany)
It was in this German city that Anton Chekhov was treated for tuberculosis and died. According to legend, his last words were: “Ich sterbe” (“I’m dying” in German). The literary museum was opened in 1998 on the anniversary of the writer’s death and, in 2015, it was moved to a new building, the former town hall. Now, Chekhov evenings and exhibitions dedicated to the writer and others are held there.
By the way, there is another museum dedicated to Chekhov outside Russia and it’s located in… Sri Lanka! In 1999, a memorial room was opened in a suite at the Grand Oriental Hotel in Colombo, where the writer stayed, when he was returning from Sakhalin.
3. Nabokov Suite at the Montreux Palace (Switzerland)
Vladimir Nabokov lived in the luxurious Montreux Palace Hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva for the last 17 years of his life. The royalties from his books and the film adaptation of ‘Lolita’ made it possible to stay in a luxurious room for a long time. In the Alps, the author continued writing and was engaged in his other passion, collecting butterflies.
Now, the Vladimir Nabokov suite number 65, which has preserved the exact living environment of the writer, has become both a museum and a historical room, where you can even stay. Meanwhile, there is a monument to the writer in front of the hotel.
4. Ivan Turgenev dacha, Bougival (France)
Ivan Turgenev built this two-story mansion for himself in 1875 and used it to spend what would turn out to be the eight last years of his life. It was there that the writer died in 1883. The entire Parisian beau monde gathered at his ‘dacha’, including Emile Zola, the Goncourt brothers and Pauline Viardot, the writer's muse, as well as Turgenev's Russian friends. The memorial Museum appeared there in 1983.
5. Mikhail Sholokhov Museum, Daryinskoye (Kazakhstan)
It was in Kazakhstan that the first museum dedicated to the author of ‘And Quiet Flows the Don’ outside of Russia was opened and it happened while he was still very much alive. During World War II, the writer’s family was evacuated there, in the village of Daryinskoye, western Kazakhstan. And Sholokhov went to visit them.
It’s believed that he began working on his novel ‘They Fought for Their Country’, devoted to the war, there. Subsequently, the writer visited the place more than once on vacation and it was there that he learned that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965.
The memorial museum has preserved the writer's personal belongings, as well as recreating the life and atmosphere of his life there.
