Pushkin Memorial Museum-Apartment

In a mansion on the Moika River Embankment at No. 12 operates a museum devoted to the final months of Alexander Pushkin's life. Since 1953 it has been part of the All-Russian Pushkin Museum, and before that, from 1925, it was under the care of the Pushkin House of the Academy of Sciences. This is one of the few places in St. Petersburg where the genuine belongings that surrounded the poet in his last days have been preserved.

The house on the Moika had a long history even before Pushkin: in the early 18th century the architect Domenico Trezzini lived here, and later the property belonged to the dignitary Ivan Cherkasov, who built a single-story building on a high plinth. The mansion was rebuilt more than once and changed owners several times — among them Catherine II's favorite Grigory Orlov and the Shuvalov family — and in December 1806 the estate was acquired by Princess Volkonskaya. It was in her house, in an eleven-room apartment on the ground floor, that Pushkin settled with his family in early September 1836; it was here, too, that he died on 29 January 1837 after being wounded in a duel.

After the poet's death his widow left the capital, and the rooms were let to random tenants for a long time, so that by the early 20th century the apartment's appearance had changed considerably. Its revival began only in the 1920s: in the autumn of 1924 the former Pushkin apartment passed to the Pushkin Circle of the city's local history society, and later to the Academy of Sciences. The first memorial gathering in the restored drawing room took place in February 1925, and the museum was officially opened on 13 February 1927 by the staff of the Pushkin House.

The museum's later history is a series of reconceptions of its exhibition: for the centenary of the poet's death in 1937, then again in 1949, and from the 1960s a process of "memorialization" began — turning the generic halls into authentic period interiors of Pushkin's era. A large-scale restoration in 1982–1987 returned not only the apartment but the entire mansion to its original appearance. Later, for the poet's 200th anniversary and in the years that followed, an introductory exhibition about the duel was opened, and in 2012 the nursery of Pushkin's four children was recreated.

Today the poet's study holds his genuine writing desk, a Voltaire armchair, a travel chest, walking canes, and an inkstand with a figurine of a small Moor. Here, too, stands the sofa on which Pushkin died — in 2008 experts found traces of blood on its upholstery that matched a preserved lock of the poet's hair. The exhibition includes the waistcoat Pushkin wore on the day of the duel, a death mask by the sculptor Halberg, and materials on the duel itself at the Black River, including the terms of the encounter signed by the seconds.

The Museum-Apartment remains one of the main places of Pushkin's memory in Russia: every year on 10 February admirers of the poet gather here, and its authentic interiors and belongings make the museum an exceptional testament to the final months in the life of the man who shaped the face of Russian literature.