Moscow Guide
The Zemlyanoy Gorod
Chekhov House-Museum
Address: Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya ulitsa no. 6
Telephone: 291 61 54
Opening time: Tues, Thurs, Sat 11am–6pm; Wed, Fri 2–8pm
Price: R40
This pink two-storey building is the recently restored Chekhov House-Museum (dom-muzey A.P. Chekhova), where Anton Chekhov, his parents and his brother lived from 1866 to 1890, during which time he wrote Ivanov, three one-act farces and over 100 short stories, while practising as a doctor. He also found time for an active sex life, as evinced by letters that discuss the pros and cons of making love on the floor, in bed, or over a trunk – and what to do if the servants walked in. The museum has been carefully restored to how it would have been when Chekhov lived there, with much of the furniture re-created from descriptions in his writings. Aside from a few collections of pens and some original novels, there is little for lovers of the writing itself, but the ambience of the rooms gives visitors a good sense of life in Chekhov's time.