Alexandrov

Museum of Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaevas

The museum occupies the original wooden building where Anastasiya Tsvetaeva, a Russian writer, lived in 1915-1917. Her sister Marina Tsvetaeva, a famous poetess, visited this house and wrote some of her well-known poems here. The managers of the museum do their best to guide every visitor. In fact, visiting the museum without a guide is just impossible, because there are no exhibits to watch. The whole museum is an elegantly furnished room with photos on the walls and an imitation of the footbridge in the middle. The guide will readily tell you about the Tsvetaevas family and also show an exhibition "Alexandrov – the center of 101st kilometer" about people who were prohibited to live in Moscow during the Soviet times and stayed in Alexandrov. The museum is a local cultural center: it hosts musical and poetical performances, books about Marina Tsvetaeva are also sold here.

The museum reconstructs the old merchant's life. The museum staff act as the family of Pervushin, the 19th century russian merchant originating from Alexandrov. They will tell you about russian traditions and the history of the house, offer tea and local drinks. The interior is not original. This is however compensated by an inofficial non-museum atmosphere, the chance to see things in detail and to touch them. Art exhibition another branch of the museum can be found in the neighboring building Советская ул. 5.

The museums of Alexandrov are not very exciting. Aritificial stones are really unusual, while the two other museums try to compensate the lack of exhibits by the intensive and even useless guidance. The reconstruction of the 19th century life is rather common for russian museums and can be found elsewhere. To learn more about Marina Tsvetaeva, visit the museums in Moscow, Ivanovo, and Tarusa.