The writer often went to Nirnzee’s famous house (named after its architect and owner) as the editorial section of the Moscow office of the Berlin-based newspaper Nakanune, in which he had works published, was located on the ground floor. The final scene of the short story Diaboliad (1924) unfolds on the rooftop of this building.
Bulgakov’s stories and essays appeared in practically every edition of the paper from 1922-1923. Nonetheless, the writer was bored by working for a publication which had an openly pro-soviet slant. In September 1923, he bitterly wrote in his diary, ‘Oh, later it will be absolutely necessary for me to scrape away the dirt from my name. However, I can say one thing with a clean conscience before myself. Dire need forced me to publish in that paper. If it weren’t for Nakanune, neither Notes on the Cuffs nor many other works in which I can truthfully write literature, would have seen the light of day’.
Point on the map
This map shows where the address sits and how it is tied into the project routes.
Routes
This point belongs to one or more routes. Open them as sequential walks rather than isolated cards.
First address
- Stop 12
- 2,1 km
- 1 h
The route encompasses sites of literary and biographical significance in the life of Bulgakov, centred around the environs of Patriarch’s Ponds. \tAt the end of September 1921, Bulgakov arrived in Moscow with the intention of becoming a writer – his first address was flat 50 in house 10 on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street. Bulgakov’s first three years in Moscow were closely connected with the region around the Patriarch’s Ponds. The Patriarch’s Ponds are not only important in Bulgakov’s biography, but also in his works – this is where the events of The Master and Margarita begin. In the novel, Woland and his retinue live on Bolshaya Sadovaya, the characters in the tale The Spiritual Séance inhabit 32 Malaya Bronnaya, and so on.
