Literary and Musical Museum "Shalyapin's Dacha"

About museum

In 1903 the Pyatigorsk merchant Ushakov built the house to a design by architect Emmanuil Khadjaev. In 1911 the composer Sergei Prokofiev rented it and lived there in the summers. In 1914 the house was bought by the Cossack general Georgy Abrezov, and in 1917 Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin rented accommodation there. After the October Revolution the house was nationalized and was successively used as a dormitory, apartments, a German headquarters and a sanatorium. During Shalyapin's stays the dacha turned into a musical salon visited by his conductor and pianist Vasily Safonov, theater director Konstantin Stanislavski and others. Shalyapin loved Kislovodsk and had been coming here since 1899 to sing for passersby, and on performance days special trains were run. Here he performed almost all of the signature roles of the operatic repertoire. Poet Alexander Grin, writer Alexander Tvardovsky and others lived and worked in the house.