Sheet 1 · 40 m² room
The Ovsyannikovs
- Occupation
- professor at the Technological Institute and his engineer son
- In «Ours»
- Gordei — the neighbour at the communal telephone
- Material evidence
- swan-shaped cremone bolts of 1912, a sea-green stove
The family of Boris Ovsyannikov, professor at the Technological Institute: himself, his wife and their son Gordei. In 1935 they were «consolidated» down to a single room, and the right to a home of their own had to be confirmed by a certificate from the institute. The son, the engineer Gordei, went straight into Dovlatov’s prose: in «Ours» he is that life-loving neighbour who painstakingly retouched ladies’ buttocks on the wallpaper by the communal telephone.
See the room on a tour, daily from 11:00 →
Sheet 2 · 20 m² room, on two levels
Tatyana Mileant
- Occupation
- costume designer, «Lenfilm»
- Room
- locked for more than thirty years — survived better than any other
- Material evidence
- original film sketches and paintings
A costume designer at «Lenfilm» — she worked with Dinara Asanova and on the film «Twelve Months». She lived here from the 1970s with her son, Nikolai Nazarov. His life ended tragically within these walls — after that the room was locked for more than thirty years. That is how it survived better than any other: a 1970s time capsule. The room was opened in April 2024; the stove was restored by craftsmen from «Keramarch».
Mileant’s room on the apartment plan →
Sheet 3 · 26 m² room
The Zhuravlyovs
- Occupation
- variety singer and Radio Committee musician
- In «Ours»
- the singer with a treble clef on the wallpaper
- Material evidence
- lost: the stove was smashed with an axe in the campaign against excesses
A musical couple behind the wall, not the quietest of neighbours for a communal flat: Alla, a variety singer with Lengosestrada, and her husband Arkady, a musician at the Radio Committee. She rehearsed behind the wall, and on the wallpaper by the telephone she drew a treble clef.
«The variety singer Zhuravlyova reproduced a treble clef that resembled an ear».
S. Dovlatov, «Ours»
Sheet 4 · 17 m² room — formerly Nora Dovlatova’s
Svetlana Smirnova
- Occupation
- keeper of family belongings
- Contact
- the room of Dovlatov’s mother, Nora Sergeyevna
- Material evidence
- a toy cat from 1945, a 1911 «Singer», a carpet from the Zavidovo manufactory
Dovlatov’s mother, Nora, once lived here. Now the room holds another life, entirely. Svetlana Smirnova, born during the Siege, kept what others threw away: family things, mostly pre-revolutionary, from her grandmother, born in 1881. A toy cat from 1945 — a gift at her birth; a 1911 «Singer» sewing machine with its manual; a carpet from the Zavidovo manufactory, from the flat of a White Army admiral.
Smirnova’s room — on the tour →
Sheet 5 · 12 m² room
Maria Tsatinova
- Occupation
- cartographic engineer
- Arrived
- from evacuation, mid-1940s
- Material evidence
- a chequerboard-tile stove from the communal flat next door — waiting in the reserve collection
Maria Tsatinova, a cartographic engineer, an Armenian from Alaverdi, returned to this flat from evacuation in the mid-1940s. A cartographer in the communal labyrinth: the lines are flawless, the calculations add up — only the flat does not.
Sheet 6 · 11 m² room off the kitchen
Servants
- Names
- Lyubov Merkushova, Alexandra Pechkovskaya, Praskovya Maksimova, Anna Kuptsova, Maria Dmitrieva
- In the prose
- the nanny Elsa Karlovna became Luiza Genrikhovna
- Artefacts
- none — servants had nothing of their own
The servants’ quarters off the kitchen: a pencil-case of a room where servants were housed for decades. Under the Ovsyannikovs, Lyubov Merkushova, Alexandra Pechkovskaya, Praskovya Maksimova and Anna Kuptsova lived here. The Dovlatovs employed a housekeeper, Maria Dmitrieva. Little Seryozha’s nanny, Elsa Karlovna, lived here too — in Dovlatov’s prose she became Luiza Genrikhovna.
Sheet 7 · room not mapped
The Tikhomirovs
- Occupation
- a lieutenant colonel and his nephew
- In the prose
- the only residents with two books — «Ours» and «The Craft»
- Material evidence
- the trunk — still stands in the flat
The Tikhomirovs’ room is not mapped on the plan — but the trace in the prose is double. The irritable Lieutenant Colonel Tikhomirov wheeled his moped back and forth across the kitchen — just as in «The Craft». And his tear-stained nephew sat on the trunk from «Ours» until lunchtime — the trunk still stands in the flat today.
The trunk — in Material Evidence →