Discover Moscow (Москва) : Moscow and Pushkin

Life and death of a giant

Pushkin was born on May 26, 1799 in Moscow into a noble family. From his mixed-blood mother he inherited the physical characteristics: olive skin, black curly hair, blue eyes. While she is admired as the beautiful Creole, she rejects her son for his dark skin. Little Pushkin then lives a tormented youth and adolescence, where he learns to hate his appearance and takes refuge in books.
At the age of 12, he was sent to the imperial high school in Tsarskoye Selo, the most elitist boarding school of the time. It was at this time, when he was only 15 years old, that his first poem To My Friend Poet was published. After graduating in 1817, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He spent three years in St. Petersburg, leading a dissolute life there and frequenting the literary society l'Arzamas and the Green Lamp circle. He wrote many poems there, some of which criticised the policies of Tsar Alexander I, despite the fact that he was not particularly involved in politics. His literary talent played tricks on him this time, earning him six years in exile. He is sent to the Ukraine, where he falls seriously ill. He was then allowed to travel from the Caucasus to the Crimea, which he did, and this experience would become a profound source of inspiration for his works.
After the death of Alexander I, Pushkin is pardoned by Tsar Nicholas I, who becomes his personal censor. The author seeks family happiness, marries the beautiful Natalia Goncharova in February 1831 and moves to St. Petersburg. In 1836 Pushkin launched his literary diary entitled The Contemporary, based on Walter Scott's Quartely Review. Initially a small edition with little circulation, the quality of its production and the talent of its authors eventually crystallized around her and made the greatest Russian writers grow. Her diary, in addition to publishing previously unpublished works by Pushkin, also features the works of Gogol, Turgenev, Zhukovsky, Tyutchev, the literary critic Belinsky and many others.
While this period of his life was one of his artistic maturity, when he developed links with great authors in the capital, he also suffered financial difficulties and damage to his reputation caused by his proximity to the autocracy. On top of this, his wife Natalia, with whom he has four children, proves to be a spendthrift and socialite, exacerbating the poet's problems. She meets Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, who is quickly suspected of courting her. Confronted for the first time by Pushkin, he claims to be courting Natalia's sister. Unfortunately, the craziest rumours run again in the city and a duel becomes inevitable. The brothers-in-law choose the pistol and Pushkin is wounded in the leg and abdomen. He died two days later, on January 29, 1837. While alive he was already a god, the circumstances of his death made him a legend and his funeral filled the streets.

Walks in Pushkin's Moscow

If this giant of Russian literature preferred Saint Petersburg to his native Moscow, the Muscovites have a fierce love for him. The memory of the poet is invoked throughout the city, and we offer you a thematic walk in the footsteps of a genius. If you want to see the statue of Pushkin made by Alexander Opekushin, nothing could be simpler: get off at the Pushkinskaya metro stop in the Tverskoy district, walk past the Pushkin cinema to Pushkin Square where the poet is immortalized. At 14 Tverskaya street was the Elisseïev delicatessen (recently closed). At this location there was a literary salon belonging to Princess Zinaïda Volkonskaya which was frequented by the young Pushkin in the 1820s. Further down the street, at 21, is the National Museum of Modern Russian History, once the English Club favoured by Pushkin to go into debt on cards.

Walk to the Presnia district. At the intersection of Tverskaya and Bolshaya Nikitskaya streets stands the charming Church of the Ascension. It is the place of the wedding of the poet with Natalia Goncharova on February 18, 1831. In the street there is also a sculpture of the couple.

For the last part of our tour, take the metro and get to the Smolenskaya station in the Arbat district. At 53 Arbat Street you can visit Pushkin's museum-apartment, a beautiful turquoise-blue house rented by the newlyweds before their departure to St. Petersburg. We advise you to take an excursion to really understand the intricacies of this exhibition. A second statue of the couple appears in front of the building, made by the artist Alexander Bulgakov in 1999.

Pushkin, adulated

Pushkin's most important imprint is the one he left in the minds of the Russians. In their eyes, what he touches turns to gold. Thus, the poet's wet nurse, Arina Rodionovna, has gone down in history and is surely the most famous wet nurse in the world thanks to the number of works dedicated to her.
The inspiration transmitted by Pushkin is best represented by the anecdote of his 7 portraits made by the sailor Ivan Aïvazovski when he would have just seen the poet in Odessa during his childhood.
Finally, the city of Moscow follows a simple rule: any significant construction takes either the name of Lenin or Pushkin. This rule applies, for example, to the National Museum of Fine Arts, or more recently the Sheremetyevo airport. The famous Pushkin Café is a special case. There was no Pushkin Café in Moscow before Gilbert Bécaud improvised it in his song Natalie. The astute entrepreneur Andrei Dellos hastened to fill this obvious gap in the Moscow landscape in 1999.
We leave you with a joke from the Soviet Union that uses the figure of Pushkin to illustrate Stalin's megalomania. It tells that a sculpture competition is being held in Moscow to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Pushkin's death. The winners are revealed: the^3rd prize goes to a statue of Pushkin, the^2nd prize to a statue of Stalin reading Pushkin, the^1st prize to a statue of Stalin.