House-Museum M. A. Voloshin

The house-museum of Maximilian Alexandrovich Voloshin (1877-1932) – a wonderful poet and translator, a subtle artist, a brilliant thinker, a critic, a philosopher, a brilliant life builder and a creator – is one of the most unique museums, widely known in the international cultural environment. The memorial building and the authentic collection allow you to put it in a short series of museums, which in the storms of the twentieth century were lucky to keep a real memorial. The building is a monument of history, culture and architecture. The museum was officially opened on August 1, 1984. However, back in 1933, the famous writer and culturologist Andrei Bely wrote: “Not a house, but a museum; and the museum is the only ... whole of a single life ... a plaster cast from its living, beautiful human face, an eternal living memory of it; monuments will not replace it.” This house is the only one, by the will of fate, left intact from the country village of Koktebel, who grew up in the late XIX - early XX century and, perhaps, the only one in the world, who preserved the mystery and charm of the Silver Age era in the atmosphere of the life-creation of his master. In it, like in a shell, there are tens of thousands of pearls - objects with historical memory. The preservation of the authentic interiors of the Voloshin rooms, where almost every object occupies a place determined by its owner a century earlier, is completely unique for European museums that have survived more than one war.

The collection of the House-Museum of M.A. Voloshin has almost 55 thousand items of storage, as well as more than 4 thousand books (many with gift inscriptions) of the scientific library, which is constantly replenished, mainly due to donations. Almost all items of the museum fund are rare, as they are mostly memorial. The archive fund presents personal documents of M. A. Voloshin, his autographs: manuscripts and typewritten with copyright, translations, letters to relatives, friends and acquaintances, notebooks; letters from various correspondents to M. A. Voloshin. Of particular value are the negatives and positives made by M. A. Voloshin himself. Interesting material sources: utilitarian household items, objects of decorative and applied art. Exclusive are homemade pieces of furniture decorated with painting, inlay, burning (for example, a wall cabinet with burning according to the drawing of the artist M. V. Yakunchikova), some things are made by M. A. Voloshin himself or according to his drawings (office for A. N. Tolstoy).

The uniqueness of a number of objects of non-memorial significance is that the information contained in them is of an exceptional nature related to the life and work of Maximilian Voloshin or his entourage. The museum has more than 1,500 graphic and 150 paintings by M. A. Voloshin, as well as more than 350 works by other authors. The book collection consists of: the memorial library of M. A. Voloshin (9254 units), the group of storage of printed publications (137 units), the scientific library (4012 units, constantly replenished) and books of the scientific and auxiliary fund, not allocated to a separate group of storage. On the basis of the M.A. Voloshin House-Museum in Koktebel, the Koktebel Ecological-Historical-Cultural Reserve "Cimmeria of M.A. Voloshin" was created in order to preserve unique cultural and historical landscapes. The very idea of creating a reserve was due to the whole life and work of M. A. Voloshin, in poetry and watercolors - his testament.