M. Voloshin's famous house in Koktebel is a cult place where all the famous representatives of the Silver Age literature came. Marina Tsvetaeva, Nikolai Gumilev, Andrey Bely, Maxim Gorky...
Maximilian Voloshin
The life of the poet, publicist and artist Maximilian Voloshin was closely connected with the Crimea. He was born in Kiev in 1877, but studied already in Feodosia gymnasium. Then he entered the Moscow University to study law, but did not finish his studies and left for Paris. In these years, he travelled a lot, believing that the earth is a very small planet and it is necessary to have time to visit everywhere. However, his passion for travelling - on foot, with a staff, to various places that are not the most famous, but very interesting - remained with him forever.
From the beginning of the 20th century, he begins to publish poetry - and enters as his own into the milieu of Symbolist poets. He enters not only as a poet, but also as an art critic. His first poetry collection was printed in 1910, and in 1914 his most famous book "Faces of Creativity", a collection of journalistic articles, was published.
He lives a rather turbulent life. Survives a great love and tragic parting with the exalted artist Margarita Sabashnikova. Comes up with E. Dmitrieva poet Cherubina de Gabriac, and then in 1909 arranges because of her duel on the Black River with Nikolai Gumilev. Continuously draws something - sketches, landscapes, caricatures. Not only draws himself, but also writes articles and books about artists, follows fashionable trends in painting. For example, it was he, one of the first in Russia, begins to be interested in the French Impressionists. Voloshin in these years is fond of anthroposophy R. Steiner and . Steiner and visits him in Germany.
M. Voloshin categorically does not accept the First World War. Does not feel any patriotic mood - the war is terrible, and he refuses to participate in this "bloodbath". However, he is not taken into the army and because of his health.
Violence Maximilian Voloshin does not accept even in the most famous works of art. After the famous attempt on Repin's painting "Ivan the Terrible Killing His Son", Voloshin stated that the artist had crossed the permissible line of violence, and had provoked it himself.
During the revolution, he also prefers the position "above the fray", as far as it is at all possible in his position.
Voloshin in Koktebel
Despite the fact that most of his activities and interests are connected with the capital's literary circles - he periodically returns to Koktebel. Crimea appears to him as a symbolic ancient "Cimmeria" - as these areas were once called by the ancient Greeks. He writes a poem cycle "Cimmerian twilight", draws a lot - and with his name is primarily associated with the "Cimmerian school" of painting. These are romantic painters, followed the marinist I. Aivazovsky. They created in their works a mysterious, bright and emotional image of Crimean nature. Voloshin painted Crimean watercolours and signed his landscapes with poetic lines. He himself later admitted that it was the Crimean nature became for him the best teacher of painting.
Since 1903 he and his mother begin to build a house in Koktebel. Voloshin's mother was a woman strong and harsh, but they always kept close and lived together. The construction has been going on for almost 10 years: they already live there, but all the time something is being remodelled and added. The layout of the house was originally designed to accommodate many guests: of the 22 rooms, 15 are small guest rooms. Guests were accommodated on the ground floor, and the owner himself occupied the second floor.
Voloshin's house in Koktebel becomes a kind of "literary commune", where his friends, writers and artists come. They have fun, arrange literary games, pranks, plays, all sorts of fooling around. Voloshin - tall, bearded and solid in appearance - with pleasure leads all this crowd. But at the same time he is not detached from the land: he can and carpentry, and take care of the vegetable garden, and do photography.
Revolutionary years Voloshin spends in the south. The Whites cannot understand in him the lack of hatred for the Bolsheviks, the Bolsheviks - the lack of hatred for the Whites. In the revolutionary Crimea, through which the waves of turmoil are rolling, he tries to help everyone who asks for his help, but he himself refuses to leave Russia, like many of his friends and acquaintances. In the early 20-ies he is engaged in the preservation of historical values of the Crimea. Many modern museum collections are exactly those values that he rescued from ruined estates and palaces.
Since 1924, he turns his house into "House of Creativity" - without essentially changing anything. Artists and writers still come here to the hospitable host. Voloshin buddies with A. Grin, who lives nearby in Feodosia. To this day, a landmark is "Grin's" path through the mountains, on which they went to each other. Here come literary people of the next, younger generation - Mikhail Bulgakov, Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky and others. In 1925 a total of almost 400 people visited here.
However, this is not an idyll. Voloshin periodically has to prove that he does not take money from those who come to visit him (because such commercial activity is not accepted by the Soviet state). He is not published. The local authorities put all sorts of obstacles in his way. In 1929 the poet suffers a stroke. He dies in 1932 in a deep depression: neither he nor his endeavours are needed in the new Soviet Russia.
Voloshin Museum
The museum was officially opened in 1984. In fact, it owes its existence to the poet's widow - Maria Stepanovna (Zablotskaya). They met the poet in Feodosia in 1919. She was a paramedic, and he was a patient.
Maria Stepanovna managed to preserve the house and memorabilia. In the 30s, Voloshin's works are not just out of print - his poems are explicitly banned. For the authorities categorically not acceptable to his position, which he expressed during the revolution. For possession of his poems during these years, one could well get a sentence. For example, in 1936 the poetess N. Anufrieva. She lived her youth in the Crimea, was acquainted with M. Voloshin, and now for the storage of his poems she was given 8 years in the camps.
However, his widow continues to live in his house, keeps it during the occupation, hides in the basement from the bombing of books and paintings. The House of Creativity in Koktebel (now the town is called "Planerskoe", and the House of Creativity belongs to Litfond) also exists, but new modern buildings are being built for it. Creative intelligentsia still gathers here. Among the regulars Planerskoe - Vasily Aksenov, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Julia Drunina, Marietta Shaginyan and others.
Since the 1970s Voloshin's legacy gradually begins to return to readers. In Koktebel settled Vladimir Petrovich Kupchenko - the second person to whom we owe the existence of the museum. He worked as a watchman at the House of Creativity, communicated with Maria Stepanovna. In the nineties it was he who published the first biography of Voloshin, as well as many documents about him - memories, correspondence. V. Kupchenko is preparing the first full-fledged collection of Voloshin's works.
Now in the museum you can see the memorial rooms of M. Voloshin, untouched since the early 20th century. A huge library with autographs of almost all famous people of that time is kept here.
The collection of silver age paintings in this museum is one of the most extensive. Here are the works of Voloshin himself and his many friends. There are works by A. Benois, K. Petrov-Vodkin, A. Lentulov, I. Ehrenburg and many others. Also in the collection there is a collection of Japanese prints, left from the very owner of the house.
One of the most famous exhibits is "Tsarina Taiah". Once in Paris, M. Voloshin saw a cast of an ancient Egyptian sculpture - and it struck him in the heart with its beauty and resemblance to his then wife Margarita Sabashnikova. He ordered a cast of this portrait in Koktebel (and another cast was ordered by Professor Tsvetaeva, the father of the poetess Marina Tsvetaeva for his museum, now there is a cast there). The artist placed the sculpture in his studio so that the moonlight fell on it on summer nights, dedicated poems to it... The name "Taiach" he invented himself - no ancient Egyptian queen or goddess exists. In fact, the Egyptian queen's name was Mutnodjemet. But she became for him the image of his tragic love, and "Taiach's cabin", the workshop - the place of creative inspiration.
Here are stored numerous jewellery: shells, figurines, "gabriaki" - dry roots of various exotic shapes, which once gave a creative pseudonym Cherubina de Gabriac.
The museum holds exhibitions, regular Voloshin readings, and continues to publish materials from its collections.
Interesting Facts
In early childhood, M. Voloshin met the artist Surikov in Moscow. He was walking with his nanny and saw a man painting a winter Moscow landscape from an easel. This so struck the boy that it was from that moment that he became interested in painting and decided to become an artist. Subsequently, he wrote a book about Surikov.
In 1917 in the capital bearded Max Voloshin workers were mistaken for Karl Marx.
Many said that Voloshin was able to remove pain with his hands, and once, snapping his fingers, lit a curtain.
On a side note
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Location: Koktebel settlement, Morskaya Street, 43.
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How to get there: the house is located on the seafront, so you can get there either on foot from the bus station "Pgt Koktebel" or by boat from Feodosia.
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Official website: http://киммерия-волошина.рф/muzei-zapovednika/dom-muzej-m-voloshina/
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Opening hours: in summer from 10:00 to 18:00, in winter from 10:00 to 16:00.
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Ticket price: adult 170 rubles, concessionary 110 rubles.
