Description of the attraction
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov bought this dacha at the beginning of the 20th century - in 1900. The noisy, densely populated Yalta irritated Chekhov, he was looking for a quiet place to rest. Therefore, I bought this house in Gurzuf.
According to Chekhov's will (he made it on 1901-03-08), the dacha in Gurzuf was inherited by O. L. Knipper, his wife. Every summer she came and lived at this dacha. During the Civil War, the actors of the Katchalov group visited this house, they toured the southern regions of Russia. I. Kozlovsky, N. Dorliak and S. Richter, O. Efremov stayed here in later years. Famous Pushkin scholars I. Medvedeva and B. Tomashevsky lived in the neighborhood of OL Knipper's dacha; In 1953, O. L. Knipper was at her dacha for the last time. And after the death of O. L. Knipper, the dacha passed to the House of Creativity named after Korovin.
Chekhov's dacha in 1987 became a branch of the writer's museum in Yalta. Every year there are exhibitions dedicated to Chekhov and exhibitions of artwork. They traditionally open in April and are on display until November.
Since 1996, one room of the museum has been dedicated to the memorial exposition about O. L. Knipper and A. P. Chekhov, the other one presents literary materials telling about the process of writing the play "Three Sisters". Museum visitors can see copies of individual pages of the manuscript, photographs of people who became prototypes of the characters, the very first editions of The Three Sisters.
The most interesting materials are about the premiere of the play in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theater, as well as photographs of theatrical scenes and performers. The museum also displays props and artists' business cards. There are documents that tell about the staging of the play "Three Sisters" in 1940. The director of the play is V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, this version of the play lasted on the stage for more than half a century.
The exposition, called "Chekhov's Encirclement", opened in the third room of the museum in 1999. The writer's family members, friends, relatives are the heroes of the photographs, drawings and documents exhibited here. You can see here reproductions of portraits of Chekhov, created by eminent painters: a portrait of Chekhov in his youth, painted by Nikolai, his brother (1884); portrait of a young writer by I. Levitan; portrait of I. Braz, painted for the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery (1898); portrait by V. Serov (1902). This museum contains a huge number of unknown photographs that have not previously been exhibited in the Yalta House-Museum.
