Behind the kitchen wooden door lies a necessary element of the traditional apartment building — backstairs. Backstairs was used by the household servants, the yardmen to carry firewood and the cooks to bring food into the house. After 1917-1918 the new residents of the apartment started using backstairs as a sort of multi-level barn, filling it with rags, old belongings and debris, all kinds of goods and chattels — too useful to throw it away and too useless for someone to steal it. During the 1970-1990' both backstairs and front stairs were painted all over by Bulgakov’s admirers, but the recent renovation has erased many traces of those rare drawings and inscriptions.
