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The State Alexander Pushkin Museum

53, Stary Arbat, Moscow, 119021, Russia Phone: +7 (495) 201-5674 http://www.moscow.info/museums/state-alexander-pushkin-museum.aspx

About

This museum, honoring the greatest poet in Russian history, and one of the most significant figures in world literature, is not the most inspiring of collections, although it is well organized and labeled. The displays take you through the stages of the poet's life, and the sheer quantity of Pushkin paraphernalia is remarkable, from miniature portraits of the poet to the medicine chest that was used by the doctor who treated his fatal injuries. With some of the exhibits, the connection to Pushkin himself is less than tenuous. There are some things that are well worth seeing, though particularly the poet's own charming line drawings, with which he often embellished the manuscripts to his verse, and the touching final hall, which contains everything connected to his tragic dual, including his death mask and the pen with which he wrote his last poem. There's a second part of the museum in a flat on the Arbat (No. 53), where Pushkin hosted the equivalent of a stag party, and briefly lived with his new bride, the treacherous Natalia Goncharova. The exhibition dates back to 1937, when a nationwide celebration was organized to commemorate the death of the great poet. It was then decided to keep all the exhibits that had been gathered for different exhibitions in one museum sited in the former estate of the Khrushchev-Selezenev family, where Pushkin himself may or may not have been a guest. Restoration pf the building took years, and was interrupted by the Second World War, and it wasn't until 1961 that the museum opened its doors to the public. Gifts of relics connected with the poet continued to pour into museum's collection, and the museum was further renovated in honor of bicentenary of the poet's birth. The museum regularly hosts 'Pushkin evenings', where his works are read by professional actors, and there is also a concert hall used for concerts and balls.