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The most beautiful and romantic museum in Feodosia is dedicated to the author of "The Scarlet Sails" - Alexander Grin. The writer lived in this city for several years. The exposition immerses the visitor in a magical Greenland - a country in which there are cities invented by him: Liss, Zurbagan, Liliana and others.

Alexander Grin

The real name of this author is Alexander Stepanovich Grinevsky. He was born into the family of a Polish nobleman exiled to Russia for his participation in the 1863 uprising. "Grin", short for surname, was a gymnasium nickname, which later became a creative pseudonym. Since childhood he dreamed of the sea and distant wanderings, and at the age of 16 he left home in order to go to Odessa. In Odessa, he lived for a while as a hack, then managed to get a job as a sailor - and made his first voyage to the sea. But maritime career did not work out - the romantic young man was categorically not fit to be a sailor. He returned home, and then tried his luck again - already in Baku. He changed a lot of occupations, but did not stay anywhere. From despair entered the soldiers - and deserted, military discipline was not for him. But his nature found a manifestation in revolutionary activity. The young man became eser and received the underground nickname "Dolgovyaziy". He did not engage in terror, but as a propagandist was bright, eloquent and convincing. He was arrested several times, more than a year in prison, twice tried to escape, was released under amnesty, arrested again ... It is in these years he finds his calling - writing. The first stories under the pseudonym "Green" printed in 1907.

Before the outbreak of World War I, he managed to publish two collections of short stories, marry and divorce, break with the SRs, get together with literary circles in St. Petersburg. Stories he wrote in those years mainly realistic, denouncing the problems of the existing system. Only after several years of writing in his works begin to appear outlines of "Greenland" - a fictional romantic country about which he wrote all his subsequent life. In the last years before the revolution he hides in Finland, and 1917 he returns to Petrograd.

The revolution proved to be devoid of romance. In 1918, Green was almost shot for denouncing terror. Then he was drafted into the army, and miraculously survived typhus. He, like many other representatives of Russian literature, actually saved close to the Bolsheviks Maxim Gorky. Green settled in the famous House of Arts - the same place where lived N. Gumilev, O. Mandelstam and others. This hungry but bright time is colourfully described in the late story "Fandango". He did not accept the revolution, but also did not reject it - he was no longer interested in politics at all. In those years, Green writes his most famous work - "Scarlet Sails", about love and the sea, as if trying to escape from the nightmarish reality. He dedicates the story to his third wife - Nina Mironova. His third marriage finally proved to be strong and with Nina he never parted again.

Green gains literary fame. He's finally getting published, he's getting royalties. The hunger has receded. And in 1924, Green fulfils his dream - he moves from Petrograd to the sea, to Feodosia. He finds a house built in 1891, on Galereynaya Street. It is in it that the museum is now located. Alexander himself liked the house terribly. He himself describes it in the story "Running on Waves", and writes about the amazing combination of blissful silence - and the noise coming from the harbour.

The Greenes live very quietly. Alexander is experiencing a creative high and writes a lot. They are friends with another famous Crimean resident of those years - Maximilian Voloshin. But the time is rapidly changing. With each passing year in Soviet Russia, there is less revolutionary freedom and more ideological pressure. Green's romantic, fairy-tale works turn out to be incompatible with the new literary policy. The planned publication of the collected works is interrupted, new works by Green are not printed. Money again ceases to be enough, and then the family moves to where life was cheaper - in the Old Crimea. In 1931, the Grins go to the capital, and then to St. Petersburg. Alexander tries to publish his last novel or at least to get a pension from the Union of Writers, but he is refused. During these years he drinks a lot - in the capitals he drinks with his former bohemian acquaintances. But to drink with them you can, and help from them no help. He returns to Old Crimea, and in 1932 dies - sick and unnecessary in the Soviet Union. Green is buried in the Old Crimea. His wife chooses for the grave such a place, from where you can see his favourite sea.

The fate of Nina Nikolaevna was not easy. During the years of occupation she was taken to a German labour camp, and when she returned, like many prisoners of such camps she was accused of complicity with the occupiers and found herself in a Soviet camp. She sat for almost ten years, was released under the amnesty of 1955 and was rehabilitated in 1997. The last years she lived in Old Crimea and on her initiative there was opened a small museum of A. Grin.

Grin's books continued to be published until the campaign to combat cosmopolitanism, when they were banned and began to be withdrawn from libraries. Green's full-fledged return to the reader was already in the early 60s.

Museum exposition

The museum in this building was conceived as early as 1966, and opened in July 1970. Already Anastasia Tsvetaeva called it "magical". It is indeed far from the usual "writer's museum" with a traditional exposition of photographs and preserved things. It was created to truly transport visitors to the romantic and mysterious world of Grin's works. The concept of the museum was invented by G. I. Zolotukhin with the participation of artist S. Brodsky. Savva Brodsky is an illustrator and he owns many illustrations to Green's works. The museum itself is designed more like an illustration for an art book than an academic preface to it. The museum is decorated like a ship, which has a hold, cabins, clipper room, etc. This is a real "museum of romance", a museum of ships, travel, sincere love and loyal friendship.

Visitors are greeted by "frigate hold", with models of ships on the walls and portraits of A. Grin himself by artist S. Brodsky. "Cabin of wanderings" is dedicated to the writer's childhood and the birth of romantic images in his soul. From Vyatka he went to Odessa, to his dream of the sea. The exposition tells about his travels - to Alexandria, Istanbul, Baku. Among the exhibits are not only Grin's relics - in this room, for example, there is a shuffle-box, which was shot in the Soviet film about A. Grin - "Knight of Dreams".

Clipper Room with a huge model of a sailing clipper tells about the writer's first literary experiences, about his participation in revolutionary organisations. To this time belongs the main exhibit - the earliest image of the writer, a photograph from 1906. The exposition tells about his life in the years before the revolution: arrests, propaganda, publication of new stories, romantic love and marriage - and separation.

The central image of the "Rostral" room is the famous ship with scarlet sails, the main symbol of the writer's work. A. Grin wrote this story for many years, started, abandoned and again returned to his favourite idea. The story was published in 1923. The manuscripts of the story are kept in the museum, on sheets torn out of office ledgers: in Petrograd of the 20s, where the writer lived then, there was a catastrophic lack of ordinary writing paper. In this room you can see the very first edition of the story.

Captain's cabin is dedicated to A. Grin's life in the Crimea. There is a photo gallery here - there are many photos from this period of his life. It was the time of the highest glory - begins to publish a collection of works by A. Grin. Fifteen volumes were conceived, but only eight went into print - you can see them in this room. Green wrote in these years the best of his things - "Golden Chain", "Fandango", "Running on Waves".

The next room - memorial study of the writer. Here, according to the descriptions, the atmosphere of his last office is recreated, not in Feodosia, but in the Old Crimea, where he ended his life.

The exposition continues to develop. In 1981, the famous for the whole Feodosia brigantine - a panel bas-relief on the wall of the house, the ship, as if sailing into the street from the sea. In 1985 a new hall dedicated to the reflection of Alexander Grin's work in the modern world appeared. The centre of the hall is occupied by a model of one of the main cities of "Greenland" - Zurbagan. In the 90s a gallery of modern romantic painting appeared. Now there are numerous exhibitions, literary and musical evenings and other events.

The museum conducts publishing activities dedicated to Green - because in its collection there are many unique documents about the writer's life. The museum has published unpublished memoirs about Grin, biography of the writer, A. Grin's works with unique illustrations from the museum collections, etc. The museum has a room-library, where numerous editions of A. Grin's works in different languages are presented.

Interesting facts

Before his death, Grin confessed and took communion. The priest said that when he asked Grin whether he had reconciled with his enemies, the dying man replied: "Do you mean the Bolsheviks? They are not my enemies, I am indifferent to them".

In 2011, a wine festival was held under the auspices of the museum. Participants were loving couples, and they were offered to taste "Captain Grey's wine".

On a side note

  • Location: Theodosia, Galereinaya Street, 10.

  • How to get there: by shuttle taxi number 1, 2, 5, 6, 106 to the stop "Galereinaya".

  • Official website: https://feomag.ru

  • Opening hours: 09:00-17:00, weekends - Monday, Tuesday.

  • Ticket price: adults - 150 rubles, schoolchildren - 70 rubles.