In the center of the city is the most famous house of Taganrog, which is called the Museum the House of Chekhov. In this small house in 1860, the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov was born. His work has received recognition not only in Russia, but also around the world.
A small house was built in 1850 on the territory of the estate of merchant A.Gnutov. This adobe house with whitewashed walls is typical for the southern regions of Russia. A.Gnutov rented out such houses, and in 1859 a merchant Chekhov and his family settled here. The area of Chekhov`s house is 30.5 meters. There is a bedroom, a children`s room, a living room (also a dining room), and a tiny kitchen.
Anton Chekhov was born in this house on January 29, 1860. Chekhov`s family lived here five of them. In the Museum the House of Chekhov, the interior has been reconstructed, as during the Chekhov`s lifetime. In the middle of the tiny kitchen there is a stone oven where food was cooked and the house was heated with it. Chekhov`s mother, Elena Yakovlevna, brought up her sons at home and spent a lot of time in the kitchen.
Next to the kitchen is the largest room of Chekhov`s House. It served as a living room, a dining room, and a study for Pavel Egorovich, Anton Chekhov`s father. The area of the room is 9 square meters, it has 4 windows. In the center of the room there is a round table with a samovar on it. In the closet you can see the dishes used by the Chekhov family. In the corner hangs an Icon of the Virgin Mary, painted by the writer`s cousin Vasily Mikhailovich Chekhov.
Next to the living room there is a small bedroom with two beds, where the parents slept. In the same room there is a crib of one-year-old Anton. In the next room there was a nursery with one bed. Anton`s older brothers, Alexander (5 years old) and Nikolay (2 years old), slept together in it. Next to the bed is a large chest of Mikhail Chekhov, the writer`s uncle.
The Chekhov family lived in this house for three years until March 1862. Then they moved into a more spacious house. The museum in the house where Anton Chekhov was born was created in 1910, on the initiative of Evgeny Garshin, Anton Chekhov`s brother. In 1868, Chekhov entered the Taganrog Gymnasium, where the Chekhov Literary Museum was established in 1970. From the age of 9 to 14, Anton Chekhov lived in the Chekhov`s Grocery, where a museum was also created.
