Among the many old estates hiding in the green oasis of Professors’ Corner, where many outstanding figures of science and art lived and worked, the Museum of Writer I.S. Shmelev is of special interest. This house is interesting for several reasons: the famous writer I.S. Shmelev lived and worked here for 4 years, and the house was built by the famous architect A.N. Beketov.
I.S. Shmelev is an outstanding Russian writer who became famous for his fiction and documentary works describing the first Russian revolution, as many believe, in the style of Dostoevsky. These are the short stories «Vakhmister» and «Ivan Kuzmin», the novels «Raspad», «On a Hurried Business», «The Man from the Restaurant», «The Sun of the Dead» and others. In his works, I.S. Shmelev concentrated attention not on statistics and politics,
but on the human soul, on the agony of experiencing all the horrors and trials, on the terrible themes of madness and crime.
In Alushta I.S. Shmelev lived from 1918 to 1922. The writer settled in the house built by the famous architect AN Beketov for his father, Academician NN Beketov after the first estate burned down. Those were hard years — the writer experienced here all the horrors of the civil war. For many years Shmelev dreamed of living in the Crimea, but the terrible events of that time did not allow the writer to quietly admire the Crimean nature in his own writing studio. The writer’s attitude to the Crimea, admiration for its beauty is reflected in the stories of the writer «Under the Mountains» and «Grapes», which he wrote after his first visit to Alushta in 1907.
The mud-brick house with two rooms and a veranda, where the writer lived, was built in the style of classicism. The highlight of the one-story building is the raised roof in the center, as well as imitating the antique fence stucco under the window frames. The small white building, surrounded by greenery, has lightness and creates a feeling of spaciousness. The whole architectural composition, contrasting with the lush green of bushes and trees and the blue of the Alushta sky, creates the most favorable impression. The fact that the famous writer lived here for 4 years is evidenced by the memorial plaque installed on the building.
The only in the CIS House-Museum of the writer I.S. Shmelev, opened in 1993, reflects the main stages of his life, and the main attention in the exposition is paid to the period when he lived in Alushta. The image of the unrealized dream of a quiet and peaceful life in the Crimea is recreated by household items, paintings, photographs and books, furniture and personal belongings of the writer.
A special section of the museum’s exposition is devoted to the history of creation of the work «Sun of the Dead» about the severe famine in the Crimea in 1921, which was translated into 5 languages and caused hot responses of many outstanding writers of the world. Critics called this book the most terrible of those written in Russian.
A visit to this attraction of Alushta will be interesting not only for the writer’s fans, but also for those who are interested in history, literature, or just significant places that keep the memory of difficult events of the past. When planning your holiday in Crimea, take time to visit the Museum of writer I.S. Shmelev, thanks to which you can learn a lot of interesting things about Alushta of the revolutionary period and about the writer’s life.