In this flat, which is most famous for being the place where the events in the novel The Master and Margarita unfold, Mikhail Afanasevich Bukgakov lived from autumn 1921 to summer 1924. In November 1924, he deregistered himself from his living quarters and left for good. After the revolution, Ilya Pigit’s flat block was nationalised and workers were settled in it. Sixteen people (including the famous Annushka) lived in flat 50 together with the writer and his wife T. Lappa. Here Bulgakov wrote his novel The White Guard and the short stories Diaboliad and The Fatal Eggs, as well as many essays and satirical pieces.
The rowdy inhabitants of the communal flat tormented Bulgakov and hindered his work. Bulgakov made this telling entry in his diary in October 1923: ‘Today they started heating the flat for the first time. I spent the whole evening sealing the windows. The first night of heating was marked by the fact that the famous Annushka left the kitchen window wide open. I have positively no idea what to do with the scoundrels who live in this flat.’ The story No. 13 — Elpit-Rabkommuna House is dedicated to the very house itself, and the scandalous neighbours became literary figures. For example, the famous Annushka — who caused Berlioz’s death (The Мaster and Margarita) — actually lived in flat 50 and the characters of Shvonder (Heart of a Dog) and his accomplices were taken from real members of the worker’s commune in house 10 with whom Bulgakov had to deal with on more than one occasion. Although the writer moved in autumn 1924, the famous house remained a constant feature in his writing. The dual life of Maksudov from the late autobiographical novel Theatrical Novel (1936) — spending his days at an uninteresting job and his nights at his writing desk — was thought up by Bulgakov from his memories of the hated communal flat. Woland and his retinue became the last inhabitants of the ‘unpleasant flat’.
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 2
- 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.
First address
- Stop 1
- 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.
