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Bulgakov Museum Needs No Advertisement: It has Legend

18 May, 00:00

By Liudmyla HRABENKO, special to The Day May 15 was is the 108th anniversary of Mikhail Bulgakov's birth and the tenth anniversary of the opening of the unique Kyiv museum dedicated to him on Andriyivsky uzviz. It difficult to imagine Kyiv, not only the street, without this museum. In the House of the Turbins (characters of Bulgakov's play The Days of the Turbins), blessed by Viktor Nekrasov, once lived the writer's big close-knit family. Later, he settled his heroes there. They still coexist next to each other - the two families, two worlds, two layers of the exhibition - in one house, not too narrow for all. As time goes by, the white-colored Turbins-related exhibits give way to real-life Bulgakov-related items.

"Our exhibition is a moving structure," says museum curator and founder Kira Pitoyeva. "In other words, it is constantly being replenished with new exhibits. The number of exhibits has increased 20-fold since the museum's first stage was opened in 1993. Incidentally, when we were only getting off the ground, we had no exhibits but the most important one, the house itself. We have no guides, excursions are conducted by research associates."

"They say you are often visited by children."

"Yes, and we are proud of this. The children also bring adults. This probably happens because family and peace is one of the cornerstones of our concept. When we were establishing our museum, we thought precisely of this. Today everyone talks about family values, but as recently as ten years ago this was considered an unpardonable luxury and Philistinism."

"Your museum has no advertisements in the city."

"We do not need to be advertised, for we have legend, the legend about the Turbins' House which can give you shelter and where you can endure hard times, standing, hand in hand, behind the cream-colored curtains. So 'We shall live!' as a GliПre romance says. I am raising my replacement, our family lives here, and our children are growing up. It would be indecent in front of Bulgakov to merely physically survive. We must live, and live decently."

Newspaper output №:

№18, (1999)

Section

Day After Day