Chaliapin House-Museum in Saint Petersburg

About museum

The F.I. Chaliapin Museum was opened on April 11, 1975 in the singer's last St. Petersburg apartment. Here, on Aptekarsky Island, in house 2B on Permskaya Street (now Graftio Street), the great singer lived from 1915 to 1922; it was from here that he left the country forever. The apartment and belongings were left in the care of his secretary and faithful friend I.G. Dvorishin.

In 1927 the Soviet government accused the artist of aiding White émigrés, stripped him of the title “People's Artist of the Republic” and banned his entry into Russia. The apartment on Permskaya began to be subdivided, and the remaining belongings went to the new tenants. Fortunately, Dvorishin collected most of the items in his rooms, which had previously served as Chaliapin's boudoir and bedroom. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the apartment's residents, including Dvorishin's family, were evacuated, but Isai Grigorievich himself stayed behind. In the winter of 1942 he died of starvation. At the cost of his life, most of Chaliapin's personal effects were preserved. Staff from the Theatre Museum took archival materials and small items to the museum and sealed the rest. After the war, Dvorishin's heirs transferred furniture, paintings and decorative-applied art objects to the museum.