A Room and a Half

Private Brodsky Museum Opens in Petersburg, Featuring Room Where Poet Lived.  Museum Will Host Tours, Lectures, and Performances
Bumaga
January 25, 2020

The furnishings in Brodsky’s room have been recreated using projections. Photo by Anastasia Rozhkova for Bumaga

A private Joseph Brodsky museum opened in the Muruzi House on Liteiny Prospect on Saturday, January 25, according to Maxim Levchenko, the museum’s creator and managing partner at the development company FortGroup.

The museum plans to run closed tours for groups of fifteen people. Visitors will need to register for them in advance, and tickets will be sold on the project’s website. The price of the tour has not yet been set. According to Levchenko, the museum will charge enough to cover salaries and maintenance costs.

The memorial section of the museum occupies the room where Brodsky lived with his family. It was uncoupled from the communal apartment to which it was attached. In his works, the poet dubbed the space “a room and a half.” The furnishings have been recreated using projections.

The second part of the museum is housed in the apartment next door. According to experts, its purchase cost about 35 million rubles [approx. 510,000 euros]. The walls have been stripped, floor boards have been put down, and photographs hung on the walls. An amphitheater, where lectures and performances will be held, has also been constructed.

The museum’s creators note that they are collaborating with the Anna Akhmatova Museum, which will provide them with historical objects in the future.

In 2018, Levchenko stated that total investment in the project would amount to more than one million euros. He planned to attract partners after the exhibition was ready.

RBK wrote that the museum would be curated by the people behind Brodsky.online, a virtual memorial to Brodsky, produced in conjunction with the Anna Akhmatova Museum at Fountain House.

Attempts to open a full-fledged Brodsky museum date to 1999, when the Brodsky Museum Foundation was founded. With support from banks and sponsors, it bought almost the entire memorial communal apartment in the Muruzi House. It was not possible to complete the purchase, however, as the proprietress of one of the rooms refused to leave. Because of this, the room where Brodsky lived had to be separated from the rest of the apartment.

Thanks to Eugenia Kikodze for the heads-up. See more photos of the new museum here. Translated by the Russian Reader

Elegy
Once upon a time this southern town
was the place where a friend and I met.
Both of us were young and had agreed
to meet on the seawall,
built in ancient times: we had read
about it in books.
Many waves have crashed against it since then.
Back on dry land, my friend choked on a petty
but bitter lie of his own, while I
hit the road.
And once again I am
standing here tonight. No one
came to meet me, nor do I
anyone to whom I can say, Come
to such-and-such place at such-and-such time.
The gulls scream.
The crashing waves splash.
The lighthouse is more a sight
for the photographer’s sore eyes than the sailor’s.
I stand alone on an ancient stone,
and my sadness doesn’t defile antiquity,
but compounds it. Apparently, the earth
is truly round, since you arrive
at a place where there is nothing but
memories.

Yalta, 1968

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