The Silver Age Museum is an obligatory item in the program of every tourist who decided to visit Moscow or St. Petersburg. After all, museums dedicated to this heyday of Russian culture are in each of the two capitals. Moreover, they are unique and not similar to one another.
Moscow attractions
It has long been recognized that a tourist arriving in Moscow should not limit himself to visiting only Red Square, GUM and the Sparrow Hills. In the capital there are a lot of other places that are simply necessary for anyone who is more or less interested in literature and art to visit. The Silver Age Museum is one of them.
He appeared recently. He first opened his doors to visitors in the fall of 1999. The shelter of the exhibits was the home of one of the representatives of the Russian poetry school of that time - Valery Bryusov. He lived in this house from 1910 to 1924, until his death.
Bryusov was known not only as a poet and author of the famous loneliness about "pale legs", but also as a deep researcher of the work of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. Therefore, it was symbolic that the first exhibition at which the Silver Age Museum in Moscow invited visitors was “Pushkin and Russian Silver Age Literature”.
Before this period, the house was in disrepair, it was repaired only on the eve of 1999, the 200th anniversary of Pushkin's birth. Over 10 years they worked on creating a full-fledged exhibition; some of the exhibits were obtained only from private collections. But with its discovery, it became possible to fully appreciate the influence of the "sun of Russian poetry" on the most prominent representatives of the Silver Age. You can see this exposition today if you visit the Silver Age Museum (30 Prospekt Mira) in Moscow.
How to get there
The easiest way to get to the museum is by metro. You get on the ring line and exit at Prospekt Mira station. It is not far from the very center of the capital. Once you exit the underpass, you don’t need to cross the street, go along the even side of the avenue in the direction of the Garden Ring. About two minutes walk and is the Museum of the Silver Age - Peace, 30.
The schedule of the museum is very convenient. There is only one day off in the week, traditionally it is Monday. It is also important to get on a sanitary day - it is held on the last day of each month.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, the museum opens its doors at 11 a.m. Exposure can be inspected until 6 pm. On Thursdays and Fridays, the museum seems to work on the second shift - from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. It is also worth remembering that on all days the ticket office closes half an hour before the institution ends.
Exposure Features
The house, which houses the Silver Age Museum, was rebuilt from a wooden mansion in 1910. This was done by the merchant Baev, who was engaged in the sale of shoes. The architect of the project was the then-famous capital master Chagin.
In the same 1910, on the ground floor, the apartment was rented by the poet Valery Bryusov. The building itself never belonged to the poet, but the people nicknamed him "Bryusov’s house".
Museum exhibits partially moved from the collections of the Mayakovsky Museum. The working room of Bryusov is carefully furnished. It contains many personal belongings that belonged to the poet. For example, an oak table, paintings, furniture.
Museum Tours
If you decide to go to the Silver Age Museum (Prospekt Mira), then be sure to go on a sightseeing tour. On it you can study in detail the whole of Russian culture from the end of the XIX to the beginning of the XX century. The most detailed biography of the owner of this mansion - Valery Bryusov. Tours are designed for different age groups and will be interesting for both schoolchildren and their parents.
On a sightseeing tour you can get acquainted with Bryusov's personal account, and on the second floor you will see a unique exhibition. This is the only collection of works in Russia devoted to all styles, directions and trends of Russian literature of the Silver Age.
Lectures and thematic projects
For those who are especially keen, meanwhile, there are special thematic tours and lectures. For example, "Riddles of the House of Bryusov." On it you can explore the various secrets of this building. Find out the history of this street and the houses surrounding it, about the Northern Art Nouveau style in which the mansion is built.
A separate exhibition, “The House of Bryusov, its owners and guests” tells not only about the poet, who lived here from 1910 until his death, but also about his friends and like-minded people who visited him most often. These are Mayakovsky, Khodasevich, Ivanov, Bely and Blok.
On the tour "Salons and Mugs of the Silver Age", visitors are told about how literature developed in Russia at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Where, from whom, and how often beginners and experienced writers gathered, how they communicated and had fun, how their work developed, their ideas about poetry and the world around them.
Interactive classes have been prepared for especially curious museum visitors. One of the most popular that the Silver Age Museum has to offer is the "Book and Magazine Covers of the Silver Age."
This is an interactive for schoolchildren, on which children can learn about books and magazines in which poets were printed, what paper was at that time, what symbols were used by representatives of various currents and directions of literature of that time.
There are also interactive classes dedicated to artists and poets of the Silver Age. Schoolchildren can also read detailed visual lectures on Russian symbolism, creativity and the fate of Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova and such trends as acmeism, Alexander Blok, Ivan Bunin.
Silver Age in the city on the Neva
Another institution that must be visited by all fans of Russian poets of that time is located in St. Petersburg. This is Akhmatova’s Silver Age Museum.
It was founded in 1987. For a long time it remained the only museum in which it was possible to learn in detail about the greatest poets of the early twentieth century - Anna Akhmatova and the Gumilev family.
In chronological order, 9 exhibition halls are built here - from Akhmatova’s youth in Tsarskoye Selo, through the period spent in the Stray Dog, to her main works, Requiem and Poem Without a Hero. The exposition is completed by the poet's memory room.
Where to find a museum?
In order to get to the Silver Age Museum in St. Petersburg, it is best to use the metro. You need to get to the station "Avtovo". The museum is located at 14 Avtovskaya Street.
The museum operates on a single day off - on Sunday. Opens daily at 10 a.m. From Monday to Thursday, it is open until 18:00, on Friday until 17, and on Saturday until 16.30. Ticket offices close one hour before the end of work.
The cost of tickets is very symbolic. Entrance for adult visitors will cost 70 rubles, schoolchildren, students and senior citizens must pay 40 rubles. Excursion service is paid separately. On average, it will cost 120 rubles per person.
Museum funds
The museum boasts rich funds. Here are paintings, graphics, and applied art of that period. A rich video library and music library with images and recorded voices of symbols of that era. A separate section "Numismatics" will introduce you to collections of coins that reflect the history, culture and social trends of the time.
The museum has a scientific support fund, rare books, photographs and documents of Akhmatova and Gumilyov, as well as newspapers and magazines in which they published their first works.
Among the museum’s unique and authentic exhibits are the portrait of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova by Davydov, the unsurpassed work of porcelain Slavina “Portrait of Akhmatova on a porcelain plate”, as well as paintings and drawings by other authors.
Tours
Museum staff can offer visitors a variety of excursions. Be sure to visit the review meeting. Separately, you can learn more about the large number of houses and apartments in which Akhmatova had to live, so the excursion is so ironically called "Bedouin lifestyle."
A detailed story is presented about the Gumilev family, with which Akhmatova linked her fate. A special tour is dedicated to the poem "Requiem", as well as to the closest friends - Tsvetaeva, Pasternak and Mandelstam.
Museum Creation
Separately, it is worth telling the story thanks to which the museum appeared. Anna Akhmatova, Silver Age - a subject of special love for the main creator of the exhibitions, the head of the institution, Valentina Andreevna Bilichenko. It was thanks to her that the first museum dedicated to Akhmatova appeared in Russia.
At first it was a folk museum at the literary association "Pushkiniana", then it became a municipal cultural institution. In 2001, the museum received the status of a state institution and since then is located at its current address.
