Moscow Guide
The Beliy Gorod
The Mayakovsky Museum
Address: Myasnitskaya ulitsa 3–6, to the east of the Lubyanka
Opening time: Mon, Tues & Fri– Sun 10am–7pm, Thurs 1–8pm; closed last Fri of each month
Price: R90
Website: www.museum.ru/Majakovskiy
A granite head gazing from a portal betrays the Mayakovsky Museum (muzey V.V. Mayakovskovo). Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930) was an enthusiastic supporter of the Bolsheviks from an early age, who got into Futurism at the Moscow School for Painting and Sculpture after meeting the Burlyuk brothers. Together they published a manifesto called A Slap in the Face for Public Taste and embarked on a publicity tour, Mayakovsky wearing earrings and a waistcoat with radishes in the buttonholes. In 1917 he threw himself into the October Revolution, founding the Left Front of Art with Alexander Rodchenko and Osip Brik, and producing more than six hundred giant cartoon advertisements with pithy verse captions for the Russia Telegraph Agency.
Opened in 1990, and run by the poet's granddaughter, the Mayakovsky Museum is quite unlike other memorial museums in the ex-residences of writers or artists, with their period decor and display cases. Rather, it feels like walking around inside Mayakovsky's head during a brainstorm. Melting chairs and Constructivist vortices breathe life into editions of his poetry and agitprop posters, mixed in with personal effects and symbolic objets – viewed as you ascend a spiral ramp towards the upper floor. Although nothing remains of the original flat, it was here that Mayakovsky lived from 1919 onwards, and ultimately committed suicide with a stage prop revolver, leaving an unfinished poem beside him.