Jan Rainis House Museum

It was opened in 1992 in the house where the Latvian poet Jan Rainis (Janis Pliekshan 1865-1929) lived in exile from 1899 to 1903.

In the 19th century in the Vyatka province there were about 300 political exiles annually, of which in the city of Slobodsk, when Jan Rainis arrived there, about 30 people. They represented a fairly cohesive group, often holding general meetings where they discussed topical issues of political life in Russia. The exiles had their own library. After the necessary formalities, getting acquainted with the conditions of exile in the county police department, the poet finds out that letters from Riga will reach him for a long seven days. In a letter to the wife of Aspasia, he writes that Slobodkoy is a “little nest”, but the city has a women’s gymnasium, a library, a post office, a pharmacy.

In Slobodsky the poet wrote the play “Semiidealist”, a series of poems “Far echoes of a blue evening”. Here, far from his homeland, plans for his remarkable works arose: the revolutionary poem “Ave Sol!” and the monumental drama “Fire and Night.”

In the memory of Slobozhan Jan Rainis remained as a sensitive, soulful person.

Leaving the city of Slobodskaya, Jan Rainis dedicated to it the emotional lines:

There's a field and a distant meadow.
The stream is your usual friend.
And the forest that stands behind it.
And then everything will be a stranger.
Heads are proud here.
Is it friendship and courage?

Visitors to the museum see the memorial room of the poet on the second floor, where, according to the preserved drawing, the atmosphere of the late XIX - early XX century is recreated. Every year, the museum organizes 6-7 exhibitions, where there are paintings, graphics, decorative and applied arts of Kirov and Sloboda artists, rare books, etc. Near the house there is a granite monument to Jan Rainis and his wife Aspasia.