History

The Alexander Blok Flat-Museum, opened in 1980 to mark the 100th anniversary of the poet’s birth, is located in the house at 57 Dekabristov (formerly Ofitserskaya) Street, where the poet spent the last nine years of his life. It was the first museum dedicated to Silver Age poet. Since Alexander Blok perfectly represents his time, his name became symbolic for both his contemporaries and people of later generations. Blok's personal belongings, which were kept in the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (the Pushkin House) after the death of his wife Lyubov Dmitrievna Blok, are on display.

The house, designed by architect M.F. Peterson, was built in 1874–1876. All apartments in the building were intended for rent to middle class people. Among the first tenants was the family of the poet Innokentiy Annenskiy. Later wife and children of Nikolay Repin moved here. For a long period of time the house was accomodated by a sister of a famous Russian artist Alexander Somov A. Somova-Mikhailova, and by musicians and artists of Mikhailovsky theater.

Ofitserskaya Street was connected with some important moments in the life of Alexander Blok. In 1906 his play “The Little Show Booth” was staging at the Drama Theater on 39 Ofitserskaya Street. In 1911 Blok's mother, Alexandra Andreevna Kublitskaya-Piottukh, moved into the house 40 on this street. On 24th June 1912 Blok and is wife Lyubov Mendeleeva occupied the apartment 21 of the building 57, with its angle facing the river Pryazhka Embankment. They lived here until the February of 1920, when the Bolsheviks introduced the policy of compression of “manor apartments”. In order to avoid the life in the communal flat, Blok and his wife had to move into small apartment 23 on the second floor, which he had to share with his mother and his stepfather Frantz Felixovich Kublitskiy-Piottukh, and where he lived until his death.