Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaeva Museum in Alexandrov

The Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaeva Museum in Alexandrov was opened in 1991. It is located in a small wooden house. Anastasia Tsvetaeva lived there with her common-law husband, Maurice Mints, and Marina visited her sister several times in 1915-1916.

In 1912, Anastasia Tsvetaeva married 19-year-old Boris Trukhachev at the age of 18. In August of the same year, she gave birth to a son Andrey, but their marriage broke up in 1914. After that, Anastasia met with Maurice Mintz. He was older than her and since 1914 served as a chemical engineer at a military plant in the city of Alexandrov (130 km of Moscow). Anastasia moved with her son Andrey to live with him. Anastasia did not burden herself with everyday life and was fond of literature. 

They lived in a small four-room house, which they rented from a local mathematics teacher A.Lebedev. He lived in a neighboring house, which is now also part of the museum exhibition. In 1915 Anastasia Tsvetaeva wrote her first philosophical work "Royal Reflections". Marina Tsvetaeva came to her sister with brief visits. 

In the summer of 1916, Marina Tsvetaeva came to her sister for three weeks. It was a period similar to Pushkin`s autumn in Boldino. She wrote many famous poems here. The most famous poem "I like that you are not sick with me, I like that I am not sick with you" Tsvetaeva wrote in Alexandrov in May 1915. It is dedicated to Maurice Mintz, her sister`s husband.  

In the museum you can see photos of two families: Marina Tsvetaeva with her daughter Ariadna and husband Sergei Efron, as well as Anastasia Tsvetaeva with her son Andrey and common-law husband Maurice Mints. At this time, Anastasia was pregnant with her son Alyosha, who was born in the autumn of 1916. 

In July 1916, Osip Mandelstam visited Marina Tsvetaeva in Alexandrov. They walked around the city and then Osip often remembered that she took him to the cemetery. He later wrote poems about this visit. 

In 1917, two tragedies occurred in the life of Anastasia Tsvetaeva. In May, her common-law husband, Maurice Mintz, died of pertonitis. Anastasia went with her one-year-old son Alexey to Koktebel to Voloshin, but he died of dysentery there. After that, Anastasia lived in the Crimea and did not return to Alexandrov. 

The exposition of the Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaeva Museum in Alexandrov 

The museum in Alexandrov, dedicated to the sisters Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaev, was established in 1991. In the same year, the Tsvetaeva Museum opened in Moscow. In Alexandrov, the museum`s exposition is located in two wooden houses on Military Street. At the beginning of the 20th century, this street was called Starokonyushennaya. 

The house of the teacher A.Lebedev faces the street. It has an exhibition "Museum-metaphor" dedicated to the residents of Alexandrov at the beginning of the 20th century. Lebedev built a small wooden house behind this house, which he rented out. The Tsvetaevs lived there, so the main exposition is located there. The house has completely recreated the furnishings and the arrangement of furniture according to the plan drawn by Anastasia Tsvetaeva in 1991. She was 97 years old at the time. Anastasia Tsvetaeva died in 1993 at the age of 99.  

Marina Tsvetaeva wrote about this house: "The house is on the edge, face, porch in the ravine. Wooden house. In winter - a continuous oven, in summer - continuous greenery, climbing in the windows. Ravines and slopes, which Marina Tsvetaeva describes, still surround the house, but now it is not on the outskirts, but almost in the center of Alexandrov. In the Museum of Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaeva, you can see the personal belongings of the sisters, which Anastasia handed over to the museum.