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| Leaflet from Museum M A Bulgakov |
On a recent trip to Moscow my wife and I
visited Mikhail Bulgakov’s flat, located in a quiet courtyard at 10 Bolshaya
Sadovaya ulitsa, which has been turned into a museum to honour his achievements. Like many others I became a fan of Bulgakov’s
as a result of reading his classic novel The Master and Margarita, and I was keen to pay homage and see for myself
places associated with the writer and his books.
Before we went up to the flat we called at
a rival attraction just inside the courtyard entrance. The grandly named Museum-Theatre Bulgakov
House also contains a small Bulgakov museum which is free to enter. Display cases exhibit photographs, documents
and artefacts, plus a large collection of international editions of his books
which demonstrate his enduring popularity.
The weirdest exhibit has to be a large model of a tram with the head of Berlioz,
a character from the Master and Margarita
who has an unfortunate encounter with some spilled sunflower oil and is
decapitated when he falls across a rail.
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| Tram, Berlioz at bottom left |
There is an old-fashioned ambience and
it is am enjoyable venue for a cup of tea, though it is probably very crowded
on theatre nights. There seems to be a fascination
with poor Berlioz because you can buy jars of various sizes each with a picture
of a face in some liquid, mimicking a preserved head. I was tempted to get one but didn’t think it
would survive the journey, assuming it managed to negotiate airport
security. Outside the entrance is an
attractive statue of Koroviev and Behemoth standing guard. It was a pleasant visit, but little of the
information provided was in English.
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| Koroviev and Behemoth in the courtyard |
Bulgakov’s actual flat is at the top of
a block without a lift, so a climb is necessary to reach it. Once there, it is very different in tone to
the Bulgakov House’s faded grandeur. Apartment
50, the communal flat where he and his first wife lived from 1921-4, is now a
fully-fledged curated museum (The Museum M. A. Bulgakov). The flat becomes the temporary home of the
devilish Woland and his retinue in The
Master and Margarita, and amusingly the Bulgakov House Museum sign on the
street corner by the courtyard entrance is numbered 302-bis, the fictional number
Bulgakov gave to the block.
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| The sign for the Bulgakov House Museum, 302-bis |
Recognised by the Moscow City Department
of Culture, the museum is dedicated to expounding Bulgakov’s life. While the stairwell leading to the flat is
clean it is heavily graffitied with writing and paintings relating to and
inspired by Bulgakov’s work. These
predate the establishment of the museum and have presumably been left intact
for ‘atmosphere’, but they give the stairs a scruffy look. Once at the top of the building it is a
pleasure to find that the flat itself has been completely renovated and is
welcoming and cheerful.
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| A sample of the graffiti |
Unfortunately we again found that the
non-Russian information was limited, yet I was happy simply to be able to
examine the exhibits and soak up the atmosphere. The staff were friendly and there was a
lively feel that one does not associate with normally staid authors’
museums. It was fairly busy, and a group
was lectured, sadly in Russian, for a considerable time in the bric-a-brac
filled kitchen. Whereas the unofficial
museum near the courtyard entrance has a static display, the flat has changing
exhibitions. There is quite a lot
crammed in the limited space, though there is room for further acquisitions. I thought the museum well worth the small
entrance fee.
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| In the Bulgakov Museum, naturally in a suitable T-shirt |
One could tell that the intent behind
the enterprise is serious because the single information panel in English was
headed with a quote by Michel Foucault, taken from his Les Mots et les Choses, the English-language title of which the
curators have used as the label to describe their current efforts to bring
order to the miscellaneous nature of the collection, identify gaps, and relate the
holdings to Bulgakov’s life – ‘Words and things: Unveiling a Collection’. It is to be hoped that this project will
include translations of information, and so allow non-Russian speakers to learn
more about this remarkable writer.
To complete our Bulgakov tribute we
visited nearby Patriarch’s Ponds (actually a shady garden dominated by a single
rectangular lake). I like to think I sat
on a bench in much the same spot Berlioz and Ponyrev were sitting when Woland
appeared before them. There were couples
and families lounging around, and it felt a calm oasis in the busy city. I was disappointed to learn that a tram line
never ran close to here but it was pleasant to be in the place that that
Bulgakov used to such great effect in the opening of his novel. Unfortunately the grass had been reseeded and
covered in plastic to protect it so we didn’t see it at its best. We were there in the afternoon as well, on a sunny
day, and to get the full Bulgakov effect we should have gone when dusk was
falling, shadows lengthening, and the air full of the promise of night-time
mystery. Who knows, we might even have
met Woland, come back to see how Moscow had altered in his absence.
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| Patriarch's Ponds, though only one remains |
There are a number of fine museums in
Moscow dedicated to authors, even if we did find that their limited opening
hours meant it was hard to fit them all in when there was so much else to
do. We managed to visit the superb Art
Nouveau Gorky house-museum, which deserves to be better known, and the Chekhov
museum, which also contains a small theatre added to the original home. Sadly, despite our best efforts, we could not
get to either the Gogol or Dostoyevsky houses.
Perhaps next time we’ll manage it.
There is also a Bulgakov Museum in Kiev (his birthplace), so that has
gone on my wish list as well.
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| Plaque commemorating Bulgakov in the street |
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| Souvenir coin from the Museum-Theatre Bulgakov House |
