Exhibition of the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Apartment Museum

About exhibition

The memorial museum is located in the courtyard wing of building 28 on Zagorodny Prospekt, where Rimsky-Korsakov spent the last 15 years of his life, from 1893 to 1908. Eleven of the composer's 15 operas were created here, including Sadko, The Tale of Tsar Saltan, The Tsar's Bride, Kashchey the Immortal, and The Golden Cockerel. After the death of the composer and his wife, the apartment was a communal flat for 50 years, but all original items and furniture were carefully preserved by their descendants. On December 27, 1971, at their initiative, a memorial museum was opened in the Zagorodny apartment, which, in the authenticity of its interiors, stands alongside Russia's major composers' museums: the P. I. Tchaikovsky House-Museum in Klin and the A. N. Scriabin Apartment Museum in Moscow. The museum recreates not only the physical appearance of the Rimsky-Korsakovs' apartment but also the creative atmosphere that prevailed there. For many years this house was one of the centers of St. Petersburg's cultural life. Rimsky-Korsakov's guests — composers Glazunov and Lyadov, Rachmaninoff and Taneyev; painters Serov and Repin; singers Chaliapin and Zabela-Vrubel — took an active part in the musical evenings that became known as Rimsky-Korsakov's Wednesdays. When Feodor Chaliapin came here, up to 100 guests would sometimes gather in the drawing room, and neighboring children living one floor above would even lie on the floor trying to hear the famous singer's voice.