Philologist Nikolay Lyamin, Bulgakov’s long-time friend, lived here. Lyamin’s house was a model for house 13 in The Master and Margarita, where Ivan Bezdomny stole the paper icon and the candle on the way to the Moskva river. Until 1922, the lane was called Savelovsky and, from 1922 to 1993, Savelevsky.
This building, which belonged to the Vavarinskoe Homeowner Corporation, was built in 1898 by the architect A. Ivanov. In the Soviet era, many people involved in science, culture and art lived here (A. Abrikosov, N. Koltsov, V. Shukhov and others). Bulgakov met Lyamin at the beginning of 1924 at a gathering at the writer Sergey Zayaitsky’s place. According to Belozerskaya’s memoirs, literary readings took place at Lyamin’s flat, where, aside from Bulgakov, many writers and poets, scholars and art critics, philosophers and directors gave readings (M. Morozov, A. Gabrichevsky, B. Shaposhnikov and others). In one of the two rooms that the Lyamins occupied in a communal flat was a fireplace thanks to which the Lyamins’ place became the preferred location for such literary readings. Sometimes during the readings, up to thirty packed into the room. On different occasions, Bulgakov read the entire novel, The White Guard, the plays, Zoyka’s Apartment, The Crimson Island, The Cabal of Hypocrites, and also the first edition of, The Master and Margarita. Bulgakov and Lyamin were keen chess players, and spent a lot of time playing. In 1936, after being denounced, Lyamin was dismissed from work and arrested. After three years in a prison camp, he was banned from living in Moscow and he settled in Kaluga. Despite the ban, in 1940, he secretly travelled to Moscow to bid farewell to the dying Bulgakov.
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.
In the footsteps of the characters of The Master and Margarita
- Stop 16
- 5,52 km
- 4,5 h
Daily life in Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s plays an important role in the multi-layered novel, The Master and Margarita — it is not simply a background for the fantastical events and the characters’ unusual adventures. The novel, addressed to Bulgakov’s contemporaries, describes the lives of Muscovites in detail, with the arguments arising in communal flats, the issue of flats, the spy scare, the invisible but tangible atmosphere of the Great Terror and so on. The events of the novel take over the entire centre of Moscow, and Bulgakov was almost always very precise in the details – the exceptions include only a few addresses (Margarita’s house, the Dramlit house, Stravinsky’s clinic etc.). Bulgakov’s contemporaries would easily recognize their city in the other details, had the novel been printed at that time. Since then, the city has changed a lot – some houses have been demolished, some have been rebuilt unrecognizably, but through the layers, it is possible to glimpse Bulgakov’s Moscow. Following in the footsteps of Bulgakov’s characters, you can feel Ivan Bezdomny’s horror after the death of Berlioz at Patriarch’s Ponds, his desperation in Herzen’s house, the scale of Satan’s ball in Spaso House, the eccentricity of Behemoth’s antics in the Torgsin on Arbat, and much more. The route begins at the Aquarium Garden, not far from Woland’s ‘unpleasant flat’, runs across Tverskoy Boulevard, takes in the lanes around Arbat and ends at the Alexandrovsky Garden, where Azazello and Margarita met.
Around Prichestenka
- Stop 11
- 5 km
- 1 h
In November 1924, Bulgakov moved away from Bolshaya Sadovaya, and, moving a number of times, lived on Obukhovy (Chisty) Lane, and Maly Levshinsky, until he finally moved to Bolshoy Pirogovskaya Street in 1927. He lived here until 1934 and then moved with his third wife to the first flat he occupied without neighbors, which was also his last, on Nashchokinsky Lane. The writer spent the late 1920s on Prichestenka and the little roads leading onto it – his Muscovite friends N. Lyamin, S. Zayaitsky, S. Shervinsky and others lived here. It was a circle of highly educated, old Muscovite intellectuals, who did not accept the provincial Bulgakov immediately. N. Lyamin, the writer’s close friend, lived on Pozharsky Street. Nearby was the State Academy of Arts, where many of the writer’s friends worked, and Mansurovsky Lane, where S. Topleninov lived, whose house served as inspiration for the Master’s basement.\t \tThe events of the short novel Heart of a Dog (1925) take place around Prechistenka. Bulgakov’s uncle, N.M. Pokrovsky’s, house was on the corner of Prechistenka and Obukhov (Chisty) Lane – it was he who inspired the almost omnipotent Professor Preobrazhensky with his seven-roomed apartment. With this route guide in your hands, you can go into the smallest details and bring this ‘monstrous story’ to life: find the backstreet where Sharik was picked up, discover the shop in which Preobrazhensky bought the Krakow sausage, and much more. The route finishes at Novodevichy Cemetery, where M. Bulgakov is buried.
