Block didn’t travel around Russia much, but he came every year to Shakchmatovo. Of his 41 incomplete years he visited Shakchmatovo 36 times. Many of the famous works of the poet were written in Shakchmatovo. The best poems of Block about Russian were inspired by the beauty of Shakchmatovo. This part of middle Russia is called his spiritual motherland. About 300 poems had written over here.   

    It was in Shakchmatovo where the poet met his Fairy Lady, with the name of whom many pages of his creative work are connected. Lubov Dmitrieva Mendeleeva, the daughter of the outstanding chemistry scientist with the world famous name, the creator of the ‘Periodic table’ became his wife. The wedding was in the old ‘white church’ of Michael Archangel, situated in 3 kilometers from the estate.

D.I.Mendeleev. The 1880s

L.D.Mendeleeva and A.A.Block. Picture of 1903

    ‘From year to year I spend over there the summer months... and there’s no place where I wouldn’t be able to come through with my eyes closed or in the dark night’. - wrote Alexander Block. Both the comfort of his estate and the near and far surroundings became the part of his internal world. Poet and writer Andrei Bely who came to Shakchmatovo to visit A.Block, wrote: ‘here, in the neighborhood of Shakchmatovo there is something from the poetry of Block; or may be his poetry was taken from the Shakchmatovo’s nature; serrate forest is around, the soil is tense and the sun rises’.
    By the 90-s of the last century the estate was

badly desolated. In 1910 Block inherited his father’s property after his death and reconstructed the estate on his own plans. He organized his study in the new two-storey outbuilding, and he placed library in the attic. Most of the local residents remembered the house in this style. Nowadays there is a reconstruction plan according to which it is supposed to restore the house of the 1910. That year Block had been living in Shakchmatovo for especially long time - since April till November.
    At the end of his life the poet called Shakchmatovo ‘my native places’ where he had ‘the best time of his life’.

Shakchmatovo. The estate. The end of the 19 century

Shakchmatovo. The estate. Modern view

    In different years a lot of Block’s friends, poets and writers, used to visit Shakchmatovo: Andrei Bely, Sergei Solovyev, E.P.Ivanov, Allis, L.D.Semyenov, an actress L.A.Delmas.
    Block came to Shakchmatovo for the last time in 1916, just before his leaving to the front. His mother thought that this short visit would protect her son from many troubles. In 1917 in the estate there lived only the mother and one

aunt of the poet. Soon ‘the house was robbed and burnt by the peasants who lived in the neighborhood, - not on malice prepense, but because those who had been hired to watch over the estate, had harried it, and to cover their tracks they burnt the building’. The loss of Shakchmatovo, this sweet for the poet’s heart place, where he had the best days of his life, was very hard to Block.

Next page 1   2   3

BACK      HOME