Exhibition "A. P. Chekhov and O. L. Knipper's Dachas in Gurzuf"

About exhibition

The museum's exhibition is presented in the four rooms of A. P. Chekhov's former dacha. The first room recreates an early 20th-century interior. The display includes items that belonged to the writer and his family: a bench, an early 19th-century trumeau cabinet, a wall clock by N. Moser with a winding key, a writing desk with a partially melted candle at which the writer began composing the play "Three Sisters", a dip pen, a manuscript, and rare framed photographs. The room is filled with objects that convey the authentic life of the residents of Chekhov's Gurzuf dacha. The second room's exhibition is dedicated to the play "Three Sisters", which Chekhov wrote specifically for the Moscow Art Theatre. Panels recount the play's early productions (set design sketches by V. A. Simov for the 1901 productions and by V. V. Dmitriev for the 1940 production), and a varied series of postcards shows scenes from the Moscow Art Theatre's 1901 staging of "Three Sisters". The third room is devoted to the writer's family. A central place is occupied by a bust of A. P. Chekhov by I. Rukavishnikov, a noted Soviet and Russian sculptor and People's Artist of the USSR. The panels in this room tell about the writer's parents, Evgeniya Yakovlevna and Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, his brothers Alexander, Nikolai, Ivan and Mikhail, his sister Maria, and his wife Olga Leonardovna Knipper. The fourth room's exhibition covers the period when the dacha belonged to Olga Leonardovna. In the center of the fourth room stands a bronze bust of Knipper by S. Lebedeva, a Soviet artist, Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR and corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Arts. The exhibition panels display rare photographs from the museum's collection depicting famous actors, writers, artists and musicians, as well as relatives and friends of the Chekhov-Knipper family. The museum's exhibition is beautifully complemented by a small, charming courtyard with a modest garden.