Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
202
WHAT TO SEE & DO
The best place to start is at the
Pasternak House Museum
(Ulitsa Pavlenko;
&
495/
934-5175
), a tribute to Boris Pasternak's life and work and the saga surrounding
Doctor
Zhivago.
Museum employees (there are only a few) are a good source of tips on what else
to see in town. Pasternak's life reflected those of many Russian writers struggling to pub-
lish and stay in their homeland without offending the Soviet censors. The fate of his
novel
Doctor Zhivago
was almost as tumultuous as the story itself. Pasternak wrote the
novel (which is about the Russian Revolution and ensuing civil war) during Stalin's rule
but kept it under wraps. Encouraged by signs of thaw under Nikita Khrushchev, Paster-
nak brought the novel out into the open—only to be expelled from the Writers' Union
and to see the topic banned by Soviet authorities. The topic was eventually published
abroad and earned a Nobel Prize, but Pasternak was forced by Soviet leaders to turn down
the honor. The writer died of lung cancer in this house in 1960. The topic wasn't pub-
lished in Russia until a generation later, in 1986. The modest
dacha
includes some paint-
ings by Pasternak's father and fragments from the writer's other works. Pasternak is best
known to most Russians as a prolific poet, and many of his poems are on display here,
though in Russian only, as are his translations of Shakespeare (translations were a safer
path for writers of Stalin's era than original works). Note also the painting of Leo Tolstoy,
a longtime Pasternak family friend. The museum is open Thursday through Sunday from
10am to 6pm (closed the last day of the month); admission is 250 rubles.
The
Church of the Transfiguration
and the
cemetery
behind it are also worth visit-
ing, if only to see Pasternak's grave. Once a sacred site of pilgrimage for members of
Moscow's intelligentsia and dissident community, it is still often heaped with fresh flow-
ers. The church itself, located near the train station, originally dated from the 15th
century, and was closed for much of the Soviet era. Today it's worth a visit to see how
much more modest and intimate rural Russian churches are when compared with the
magnificent cathedrals of Moscow and the Golden Ring.
The best way to appreciate Peredelkino is to wander the streets of wooden homes and
imagine the intellectual activity and often surreptitious creativity the village engendered. If
you're lucky, one of the residents tending a garden may point out a particular writer's house
or unusual sight. Solzhenitsyn, who won a Nobel Prize for his brutal account of Soviet labor
camps in the
Gulag Archipelago,
stayed in Peredelkino before his exile in 1974, diligently
continuing to chronicle Soviet abuses in tiny, easy-to-hide notebooks. In a sign of changing
times, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, has a
dacha
here.
10
WHERE TO STAY & DINE
There's only one official place in town to eat or sleep, unless you have friends in Peredel-
kino.
Villa Peredelkino
(2a Pervaya Chobotovskaya Alleya;
&
495/435-1478;
call for
current rates), near the train station, was the official resort of the Young Communists'
League (Komsomol) in its younger days. It has since been taken over by an Italian family,
who renovated the pleasant rooms, added a sauna, and rent cross-country skis in winter.
The English-speaking staff is usually quite helpful. The restaurant offers good Italian
cooking, including melon with prosciutto and excellent veal, but at prices closer to Mos-
cow standards than rural ones.
Another pleasant option is to rent a room or house for the weekend from one of the
residents, who often post ads on the website www.expat.ru. These accommodations are
reasonably priced and can offer such bonuses as a steam in a wooden bathhouse, a home-
cooked meal, or the inside scoop on Peredelkino history from a longtime resident.
