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The "three-room apartment" of Nabokov's youth, Dovlatov's run-down communal apartment and Pushkin's grandfather's mansion: How much does celebrity real estate cost in St. Petersburg
The St. Petersburg apartment where Vladimir Nabokov lived is up for sale. A luxurious three-room apartment in a historic building on Tchaikovsky Street in the heart of the northern capital. Restorations, fresh renovations and vintage chandeliers from the Hermitage staff are attracting buyers.
“There is also a beautiful hallway here, which Nicholas II visited when he spent an evening with the famous ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya,” explains real estate agent Andrei Polkanov, explaining the final argument.
Is this really Nabokov's apartment? Doubt creeps in. He came from a very wealthy family and had a mansion in another part of the city, on Bolshaya Morskaya, not far from the Kazan Cathedral. Now there is a Nabokov museum there.
"Nabokov lived in our apartment from his youth, and the owner can prove it," the realtor claims. "He depicted this place in his early works. The balcony with the atlas, the view from the window. And the writer's wife wrote about this apartment in her memoirs. As soon as you find its contents and compare it with Nabokov's text, you will immediately understand everything.
In fact, the writer's historic apartment was much larger. During the Soviet era, it was converted into a communal apartment and turned out to be a two-apartment apartment. The current owners purchased the property in the 90s. Not for life, but as part of a collection.
The communal apartment, praised and cursed by Sergei Dovlatov in the story “Ours,” has finally been sold.
Up to 200 million dollars are being asked for an apartment on the noisiest restaurant street Rubinstein. Now this room is a museum. This event was organized by residents who are desperate to sell their property. They do not want to lower the prices. There are many owners in the apartment, and everyone wants to get the required amount, but with a discount there is nothing left. They are desperate because their houses appear in the news too often due to roof leaks and other problems with utilities. Therefore, it has not yet been possible to find a multi-million dollar buyer. So, people collected piles of old furniture, books and dishes in their apartments and brought tourists here for 750 rubles a nose. There are no relics of Dovlatov here, but the owners are sure that it was the writer who left port wine stains on the parquet.
One of the cheapest apartments is the one where Mikhail Zoshchenko lived for seven years. The house on Tchaikovsky Street appears in the memoirs of the writer's wife. Several years ago, they were asking only 12 million rubles for this project. A coin by the standards of the historical center of St. Petersburg! So they sold it very quickly.
- An apartment that preserves the spirit of the times! - the seller boasted. However, if you translate real estate into Russian, it means that the house is in disrepair and has not been renovated since the 1930s.
Another matter is Maxim Gorky's apartment on the Petrograd side. Last year it was put up for auction with a starting price of 75 million rubles. "Burevestnik" knew how to live luxuriously even in the USSR. This six-room apartment is proof of that. It was a real beauty salon. Lenin, Lunacharsky, Dzerzhinsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev visited it. Shalyapin, Kuprin, Bunin, Pilnyak, Chukovsky, Zamyatin, Larisa Reisner, Blok, Mayakovsky came into the world. Herbert Wells, a famous science fiction writer who came to the Soviet Union, also stopped by. Parties were often held here, and lotto and card games were played. A buyer for this property was found without incident. The identity of the new owner of the apartment and the amount he paid are kept secret.
St. Petersburg is rich in such stories. Every now and then, an apartment where a famous person lived will be put up for sale. About a year ago, an apartment where Dostoevsky wrote his first novel, Poor Folk, flashed among the advertisements. They are asking 42 million rubles for the monastery, and it is still for sale.
A few steps from Nabokov's house, a luxurious mansion that once belonged to Pushkin's great-grandfather Abram Gannibal is for sale. The asking price for the building is 956 million rubles.
- The mansion is an important cultural heritage site of the federal government. It belonged to one of the most famous families of the Russian Empire. Trubetskoy, Beloselsky-Belozersky, Demidov, Naryshkin - this is an incomplete list of owners. The seller says that the history of the house goes back to Pushkin's great-grandfather, Abram Gannibal, "Peter the Great's Blackmoor."
This item is being sold as part of the bankruptcy of Intarsia. It is known as the largest restoration company in St. Petersburg. However, in 2016, the company was declared bankrupt and is now on the verge of selling its assets.
The first owner of the building was actually Abram Gannibal. In fact, nothing has survived from that time. After his death, the house was owned by one of the sons of the black man, and the property passed to Prince Trubetskoy. By their order, the building was rebuilt.
After the revolution, state institutions operated in the mansion, and then, as usual, communal apartments were created. Their residents have already settled in the 21st century. The building was handed over to the same Intarsia company for restoration. In 2012, workers discovered a secret room and found treasures inside. More than 2,000 collectibles: luxurious dinnerware, plates and handmade jewelry by Faberge. It didn’t take long to research where all this came from. The last owner of the mansion, Alexander Naryshkin, was a collector. And some of the items were packed in newspapers from 1917. Apparently, the owner hid part of the collection before moving in the hope of returning it one day...
This house on the Griboyedov Canal is haunted. At least, that's what actor Vladimir Karpov, who lives here, says. He created a creative space in the basement called "Where's Grandma?" Master classes and various events are held here, prices start at 1,000 rubles. But there are also free ones.
"The house is very old, many people lived here and, of course, something metaphysical remained," the writer is sure. - Neighbors say that sometimes they hear rustling and creaking sounds. Cats often get trapped and spend a long time looking into every nook and cranny, as if there is someone there. And there are cases when children see someone. For example, they say: "There was an aunt in the room." Adults come, but there is no one. In general, you constantly feel someone's presence.
It is not known whether Dostoevsky was responsible for this mysticism. The house appears in Crime and Punishment, but the clue does not give the exact address. But among the real celebrities, Alexander Griboyedov lived here.
- Experience shows that for the buyer the details of the item are not so valuable that he is ready to overpay for it. Sometimes apartments where Lenin or Dostoevsky lived are put up for sale. But people are very interested in the price! If there is some burden caused by historical elements, then this is really terrible. Everything depends on the owner. Preservation of the historical exterior or the entire interior. Therefore, there is no special marking for entries. But, of course, this helps to distinguish this audience from the general advertising mass.
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