An End of History: Muromtsev Dacha Burnt Down

The Muromtsev Dacha, a historic place in the Moscow district Tsaritsyno,  and one of the last remaining wooden houses in the Russian capital, burned down just after New Year's day under suspicious circumstances. This is a tragic story with an ugly stink.

The original house was built for Sergei Muromtsev, president of the first Duma in 1906 and an author of the famous Vyborg Appeal to stop paying taxes to the tsar during the first Russian revolution (1905-1907). The Nobel Prize winning writer Ivan Bunin was introduced to his future wife Vera, Muromtsev's niece, there (a photo of Bunin and Vera) and described the dacha village in his stories.

The house later was used as a school and then as a dormitory for teachers. In 1970s it became an informal cultural centre and meeting place. The iconic Russian writer Venedict Yerofeev, author of 'Moscow-Petushki' ("Москва – Петушки") novel, also known as 'Moscow Stations' and 'Moscow to the End of the Line'), lived and wrote there. In the 80-s and 90-s Yerofeev's memorial museum was organised in the house. It was also the main residence for six families with young children. 

Early in 2000s the area became a prized location for developers (Google map of the area below). Moscow authorities struck the house off the register and were planning to demolish it. Campaign to protect and renovate the house as an important historical and cultural monument stopped the process. It is suspected that the fire was the result of arson. Activists stood in front of bulldozers sent in to demolish the ruins.

The campaign to save and restore the Muromtsev Dacha needs support and publicity. Families who lost their homes also need help including warm clothes. Their Russian-English home web-site has details, links, latest developments and contact adresses to send help. They need workers, money, clothes - but most of all, I think, publicity. 

Please read a Poemas del Río Wang blog report about the misfortunes of the house, a LanguageHat post and Alexander Mozhaev's article about the history of the house. 

Repost, retweet, put on Facebook - help if you can.  

Google map of the area. Muromtsev Dacha (3) is in the lower, wooded segment of the old settlement with striking circular plan.  

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The Book as the Internet by Ivan Bunin

It's apple time again and I suddenly had the urge to reread the famous Bunin's short story Antonov Apples. Instead I reread the whole volume.

Book (Книга, 1924), a very short story, only 470 words, suddenly struck me as a lamentation incredibly similar to modern complaints about the internet. Books steal real life from us, make us live in an imaginary (today we say virtual) world and concern about people who had never existed and events  that had never happened. And all the while real life goes past.

Writes Bunin: I read,  lived inside someone else's phantasies, but the field, the house, the village, the men, the horses, the flies, the bumblebees, the birds and the clouds, they all lived their own life, the real life.

Ivan Bunin, the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature, is often described as a latter day Turgenev for the crispness, stylistic precision and beauty of his prose. The Book, very similar in format to Turgenev's  poems in prose, is one fine example of this similarity.

I searched for an English translation of this short story on the internet, but could not find one. Please let me know if there is one.

Full Russian text of The Book is here