The Mysteries of a House on Nikitsky Boulevard

This book is dedicated to the history of the property at No. 7a on Nikitsky Boulevard in Moscow, known as the ‘Gogol House’. The great Russian writer spent the last years of his life in the mansion. It was witness to very important events in the life of the artist. This is where he worked on the second volume of ‘Dead Souls’, where he lived through the drama of his relationship with Countess Anna Vielgorskaya, where he went through a deep spiritual crisis and where he sought comfort from the priest Matfey Konstantinovsky. It was here in a fireplace that Gogol burned the manuscript of the second volume of ‘Dead Souls’. This is the house where the days of his last illness ran their course, and where he died. The book describes in some detail not only the ‘Gogol period’ in the history of the house on Nikitsky Boulevard (at that time owned by Count and Countess Alexander Tolstoy), but also tells the story of other former owners and about changes the building underwent from the 17th century until the present day.

The book is aimed at a wide readership: literary experts, Moscow scholars, students and anyone interested in Gogol’s life and in the history of Moscow.