It has hosted many celebrities, including H.G. Wells.
Maxim Gorky has been decently swept around the world. Born in Nizhny Novgorod, moved to Kazan, spent almost two decades in exile, lived in St. Petersburg (then Petrograd) and in Moscow.
The favorite writer of the Bolsheviks, friend of Lenin and the most published author in the USSR, he could afford to rent a spacious apartment with a picturesque view of the Peter and Paul Fortress and Alexander Park.
Now you can look through the same windows through which you once looked at the city of Gorky. If, of course, you find 11,5 million rubles – that’s how much they ask for a part of the apartment where the writer lived. Once Gorky lived in an 11-room apartment, where three dozen of his relatives also settled. Later, the housing was divided into three apartments. One of them, a kopeck piece with an area of 52 square meters, was put up for sale on real estate websites.
“Maxim Gorky’s apartment! There is supporting information, – writes the realtor. – A full-fledged euro-two-room apartment with a large kitchen-living room. High ceilings, 3,4 m. A stunning view of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Gorkovskaya metro station (100 m) and the water area of the Neva.
True, nothing remained of the interior of the times of Gorky. Perhaps there is a fireplace in the bedroom, but it will also go to the new owners after the renovation. Instead of a bathroom, there is a shower cabin. And also air conditioning, plastic windows and video surveillance at the entrance – Gorky could not even dream of such a thing.
This is how the house looks from the outside.
Although about video surveillance, the issue is controversial. Painfully many of those offended by the Soviet regime came to visit the writer.
Here is what the daughter of Gorky’s common-law wife, the famous Moscow actress Maria Andreeva, recalls about that time:
“We, the younger generation, jokingly called apartment 5/16 at 23 Kronverksky Street, where Alyosha (Aleksey Peshkov – Gorky’s real name. – Wday.ru note) and mother, Tsentrzhaloba lived at that time. Indeed, everyone came here to complain: academics, professors, all sorts of offended intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals, all sorts of princes, ladies from “society”, slighted Russian capitalists who had not yet managed to escape to Denikin or abroad, in general, those whose good life was impudently violated by the revolution …
You come in in the morning to see your mother before work, and gloomy people are sitting in the hall, dining room, hall near the walls and waiting. Well, just the reception of the institution, not a private apartment.
And all these complainers! One has nothing, the other has nothing to heat, others have requisitioned an apartment or taken to the museum paintings, porcelain, stylish furniture, and that one has come to ask for the arrested father, husband, brother, son. “
Grigory Zinoviev (at that time chairman of the Petrograd Soviet) and Lev Kamenev also came to visit Gorky. There, the writer received the English science fiction writer H.G. Wells.
By the way, some elements of the old interior remain in the apartment even now: a fireplace, for example. And what a front door! However, see for yourself – scroll the photo along the arrow to the right.