The Marina Tsvetaeva Museum in Bolshevo is located near the railway station in the city of Korolev, Moscow region. Marina Tsvetaeva and Sergey Efron lived in this house with their children after returning to Russia from emigration. Sergey Efron and his daughter Ariadna returned to Russia in 1937, and Marina Tsvetaeva and her son George came here from France on June 19, 1939.
Tsvetaeva and Efron`s life in exile was quite difficult. Marina by that time was a famous poet and had royalties from poems, but all the endeavours of Sergei Efron ended in failures. He tried to become a magazine publisher, but was forced to close it. As a result, he got jobs where he was paid meager salaries.
In 1930, he began to work for the NKVD (soviet secret service). Daughter Ariadna also spoke very positively about the Soviet Union and urged her parents to return to their homeland. As a result, Sergey Efron and Ariadne were the first to return to the Soviet Union. They were settled in a house in the village of Bolshevo, which was built in 1933 by the Exportles organization, but actually belonged to the NKVD.
Ariadna went to Moscow every day and worked in the editorial office of the Revue de Moscou magazine. She wrote enthusiastic letters to her mother about the Soviet Union, and she also decided to return. At the time of Tsvetaeva, Bolshevo was a small village in the Moscow region. Tsvetaeva did not know which village she was going to. Before returning, she wrote to her friend Anna Treskova: "There are pine trees there, this is the only thing I know about it." The pine grove still grows near the Tsvetaeva Museum.
She practically did not write her poems in Bolshevo, because she understood that her work was not in demand in this country. In July 1939, Ariadna brought her mother an order from the editorial office of the magazine in which she worked: a literary translation of Lermontov`s poems into French. Marina Tsvetaeva got carried away and these works made up the famous "Bolshevo’s notebook".
Tsvetaeva lived in this house for only 5 months. On August 27, 1939, his daughter Ariadna was arrested, and on October 10, Sergei Efron was arrested. On November 6, the Klepinins` neighbors were arrested. Marina Tsvetaeva was left alone in the house with her son George. On November 8, they left Bolshevo for Golitsyno, where they rented an apartment. Marina Tsvetaeva earned money by translations. Then they lived in a room of the Zoological Museum, and in September 1940 Marina rented a room on Pokrovsky Boulevard. Marina Tsvetaeva and her son left this house in August 1941 for evacuation to Yelabuga.
The exposition of the Marina Tsvetaeva Museum in Bolshevo
The Marina Tsvetaeva Museum in Bolshevo was opened in 1992 to mark the centenary of the birth of the great poet of the Silver Age. A year earlier, the Tsvetaeva Museum in Moscow was opened, as well as the Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaeva Museum in Alexandrov.
The NKVD’s house in Bolshevo has a symmetrical layout of rooms, which allowed two families to live separately. In the same house lived the family of the Lvovs (Klepinins), with whom the Tsvetaevs were friends in emigration. On the sides of the house there are attics with separate entrances. Near each attic there are two living rooms, and in the center there is a large common hall. This cottage has been preserved to this day in very good condition, the original parquet of the 1930s has even been preserved on the floor.
The Marina Tsvetaeva Museum recreates the decor of the house of the 1930s, where the Tsvetaevs and Lvovs lived. Visitors can see the exhibition "The Fate of the Russian intelligentsia in 1937-1939". There are many personal belongings of Marina Tsvetaeva, dishes belonging to the family, dresses of Marina Tsvetaeva, which she brought from Europe.
Marina Tsvetaeva`s room was a passageway, near the kitchen. On the table is the Bolshevo’s notebook, in which Marina worked on translations of Lermontov`s poems into French. On the bed is a blanket by Marina Tsvetaeva, which she gave to her sister Anastasia, but she later gave it to the museum.
