Village of Konstantinovo. Museum of Sergei Yesenin

Village of Konstantinovo located on the high bank of the Oka. The first mentions of the village of Konstantinovo are found in chronicles beginning of the 17th century. According to records dating back to 1619, the village was the property of the royal family. Later the village was granted Princes Myshetsky and Volkonsky.
Most of Konstantinovo went to Yakov Myshetsky, and later became the dowry of his daughter Natalya when she married Kirill Alekseevich Naryshkin. Kirill Alekseevich Naryshkin was a close friend, and later Moscow governor. Being one of close associates of Tsar Peter the Great, participated in the trial of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, and was one of those who signed the death warrant for the Tsar’s son.
In 1728 Konstantinovo passes to the new owner - the son of Kirill Alekseevich Semyon Kirillovich Naryshkin. Educated in Europe, a brilliant diplomat, one of favorites of Elizabeth Petrovna, Kirill Alekseevich, having no direct descendants, bequeathed Konstantinovo to his nephew - Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Golitsyn. Prince Golitsyn owned the village for more than 30 years(from 1775 to 1808). During this time, at the expense of the prince, a
After the death of Alexander Mikhailovich Golitsyn in 1808, village of Konstantinovo passed to his illegitimate daughter Ekaterina Alexandrovna, in marriage Dolgorukova. Ekaterina Alexandrovna continued the work begun by her father, decorating the temple. After her death, in 1843, Konstantinovo passed by will to her nephews-- Alexander Dmitrievich and Vladimir Dmitrievich Olsufiev. In 1845, the eldest of the heirs, Alexander Dmitrievich, received village of Konstantinovo into complete possession. In 1853, Konstantinovo was inherited by his son Vladimir Aleksandrovich Olsufiev.

New owners in Konstantinovo appeared in 1879. They were representatives of the merchant class of the city of Bogorodsk Kupriyanov brothers. The eldest of them built in the village zemstvo school and did a lot to educate peasant children.
IN 1897 year Konstantinovo goes to " hereditary honorary citizen of the city of Moscow"Ivan Petrovich Kulakov. Using his own funds, he builds a new school building and decorates the temple with an oak iconostasis. After his death the village goes to his daughter Lidia Ivanovna, married to Kashina, who continued the charitable activities that her father was involved in. Lidia Ivanovna owned the village from 1911 to 1917.
On October 3, 1895, the great Russian poet was born in the village of Konstantinovo Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin.

Konstantinovo and Sergei Yesenin

Sergei Yesenin was born into a peasant family. As a child, he lived in his grandfather's house. The first childhood impressions of the surrounding nature, from the spiritual poems sung by pilgrims passing through Konstantinovo, from grandmother’s fairy tales were imprinted on the soul of the future poet. In 1904 entered Zemstvo school in Konstantinovo, which he graduated in 1909. WITH 1909 to 1912 studies for a year in a closed church-teacher's school school in the village of Spas-Klepiki and ends up as a “literacy school teacher.”
IN 1912 Yesenin moved to Moscow. Having written poetry since childhood, he became a member of the literary and musical circle named after I. Surikov and from 1914 began to publish in Moscow children's magazines. The first published poem was the poem “Birch”:

White birch
Below my window
Covered with snow
Exactly silver.

On fluffy branches
Snow border
The brushes have blossomed
White fringe.

And the birch tree stands
In sleepy silence,
And the snowflakes are burning
In golden fire.

And the dawn is lazy
Walking around
Sprinkles branches
New silver.

The poem is inspired by the poet's childhood memories. He saw the landscape that Yesenin describes more than once on a winter morning from window grandfather's hut in village of Konstantinovo. During the Moscow period Sergey Yesenin often came to Konstantinovo to the one left there family. Coming to their native places, immersing themselves in rural peace, Yesenin He immersed himself in books, categorically refusing to delve into household affairs, no matter how his mother asked him to do so. On one of my visits, inspired by the beauty of my native places Yesenin writes a poem:

I'm here again, in my own family,
My land, thoughtful and gentle!
Curly dusk behind the mountain
He waves his snow-white hand.

Gray hair on a cloudy day
They float disheveled by,
And my evening sadness
It worries me irresistibly.

Above the dome of the church domes
The shadow of dawn fell lower.
O other games and fun,
I won't see you again!

The years have sunk into oblivion,
Then you went somewhere.
And it’s still just water
There is a noise behind the winged mill.

And often I'm in the evening darkness,
To the sound of broken sedge,
I pray to the smoking ground
About the irrevocable and distant.

IN 1915 Yesenin leaves Moscow to Petrograd, where he met already famous poets Alexander Blok and Nikolai Gumilyov.

Alexander Blok was the first to discover the talent of Sergei Yesenin. In the memoirs of his contemporaries, Blok said that in Yesenin’s poems he heard the “songs of the soul” of the Ryazan poet and “immediately recognized” him. But most importantly, Blok helped Yesenin enter great literature. During the first meeting, Blok personally selected six
Yesenin's poems and sent the aspiring poet with a letter of recommendation to the poet S.M. Gorodetsky and writer Mikhail Murashev, whom Blok knew well. In a letter to Murashev, he wrote: “I am sending you a talented peasant poet-nugget. He, as a peasant writer, will be closer to you, and you will understand him better than anyone. Look and do everything possible.” After a visit to Murashev, after reading his poems, Yesenin received several notes to various editors and an offer to stay with Mikhail Murashev for the first time.

The poet was especially influenced by his friendship with Nikolai Klyuev, who, like Yesenin, came from a peasant background and used rural motifs in his poetry. Yesenin and Klyuev participated in creative poetry evenings, performing a duet with poems and ditties with great success. At the same time, their works were deliberately stylized in a peasant manner, and Yesenin himself came out to the public as a sort of “popular” good fellow” in morocco boots and an embroidered shirt.
IN 1916 year, Sergei Yesenin published his first poetic collection "Radunitsa", which is enthusiastically received by readers. All the poems included in the collection are imbued with childish spontaneity and childhood impressions. One of the reviewers wrote then: “A tired, jaded city dweller, listening to them, becomes familiar with the forgotten aroma of fields, the cheerful smell of black, loosened earth, with the working peasant life unknown to him, and with something joyfully new, his sluggish heart, wise with all sorts of quests and temptations, begins to beat »
IN 1918 year Sergey Yesenin returns to Moscow. Immersed in the atmosphere of revolution, the poet creates several short poems, imbued with a premonition of great changes, the expectation of a transformation of life. The poems intricately intertwined the atheistic sentiments of the young poet and Christian imagery. In the same 1918 year Yesenin often visits Konstantinovo. Like all his fellow villagers, the poet was in high spirits. IN Konstantinovo at that time all control of life was concentrated in the hands peasant gathering, led by Kolomna plant worker Pyotr Yakovlevich Mochalin. Yesenin was interested in the identity of the local activist. Later, Mochalin served as a prototype Prona Ogloblina in the poem "Anna Snegina" and the Commissioner in “The Tale of the Shepherd Petya.” During his visits to Konstantinovo Yesenin actively participated in the new life of his native village - he went to peasant meetings, talked for a long time with the peasants.
However, in the same 1918, a long, almost two-year period began, during which Yesenin didn't come to Konstantinovo. Sergei appeared again in his home only in the summer of 1920. On this visit Yesenin writes a poem “I am the last poet of the village...”(Dedication to Mariengof)

I am the last poet of the village,
The plank bridge is modest in its songs.
At the farewell mass I stand
Birch trees burning with leaves.

Will burn out with a golden flame
A candle made of flesh wax,
And the moon clock is wooden
They will wheeze my twelfth hour.

On the blue field path
The iron guest will be out soon.
Oatmeal, spilled by dawn,
A black handful will collect it.

Not living, alien palms,
These songs will not live with you!
There will only be ears of corn
To grieve about the old owner.

The wind will suck their neighing,
Funeral dance celebrating.
Soon, soon wooden clock
They will wheeze my twelfth hour!

IN 1921 year Sergey Yesenin helps his sister Ekaterina Alexandrovna Yesenina to move to his place Moscow, where she begins to take care of the poet’s daily life - organizing creative evenings, defending his interests with publishing houses, and interfering with officials. After the death of the poet, Ekaterina Alexandrovna actively participated in the promotion of his creative heritage and at the same time fought against attempts to attribute to him works allegedly written by Sergei Yesenin.
Until the end of life, in everything creativity Sergei Yesenin traces the images of his small homeland village of Konstantinovo. But unlike the first poems, in these images there appears hopeless melancholy and a premonition of an imminent ending. IN 1924-1925 year the following poignant and sad lines were written:

This sadness cannot be dissipated now
The ringing laughter of distant years.
My white linden has faded,
The nightingale dawn rang.

Everything was new to me then,
There were a lot of feelings in my heart,
And now even a gentle word
Bitter fruit falls from the lips.

And one of the most famous:

The golden grove dissuaded
Birch, cheerful language,
And the cranes, sadly flying,
They don’t regret anyone anymore.

Whom should I feel sorry for? After all, everyone in the world is a wanderer -
He will pass, come in and leave the house again.
The hemp plant dreams of all those who have passed away
With a wide moon over the blue pond.

Museum of Sergei Yesenin in the village of Konstantinovo

Immediately after the poet's death in 1925 year, in village of Konstantinovo Fans of the poet’s work began to arrive. Sergei Yesenin’s mother, and subsequently his sisters, greeted guests in Yesenin's house. Thousands of wishes to open a museum of the poet appeared in the notebooks for comments. But Yesenin did not receive official recognition at that time, so there could be no talk of a state museum. So on the high bank of the Oka it spontaneously formed Yesenin People's Memorial. Village Konstantinovo became a meeting place for lovers of Russian poetry.

Officially, the museum was organized only in 1965 year. On July 28, 1965, a government decree was adopted to perpetuate the memory of Yesenin in his homeland. On October 2, 1965, the S.A. Yesenin Memorial House-Museum was opened. Initially, the house-museum had the status of a branch of the Ryazan Museum of Local Lore. The interest in the museum was so high that four years later it opened a new literary exhibition in the estate house of the last landowner of Konstantinovo - L.I. Kashina. And soon after this, by order of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR, the memorial house-museum was renamed Literary and Memorial Museum of S. A. Yesenin. Over the years of its existence, the museum has turned into one of the largest museum complexes.

In March 1984 year, a museum complex was formed in the village of Konstantinovo, which included the peasant estate of the Yesenins, the estate of L. I. Kashina with a manor house and a park, the temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, the building of the former second-grade teacher's school in the town of Spas-Klepiki becomes the State Museum-Reserve S. A. Yesenina.
In 1990, at the request of parishioners of the village of Konstantinovo, the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was removed from the museum-reserve and returned to the Ryazan diocese. From that moment on, the temple of dreams became operational.

Currently, the State Museum-Reserve of S. A. Yesenin includes:

Yesenin estate
Museum of the poem "Anna Snegina"
Zemstvo school
Literary exhibition
Spas-Klepikovskaya second-grade teacher's school

A special feature of the museum-reserve is that it contains two types of estates - peasant and lordly. This allows us to reveal more fully and clearly on specific historical material contemporary Yesenin the environment at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, in which his creative personality was formed. At the same time, two spiritual centers coexist on the territory of the museum - the zemstvo school and the temple of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, emphasizing the importance of moral education in the education of peasant children

Yesenin estate

Those who come to Konstantinovo must visit their native Sergei Yesenin's house. In the memoirs of the poet’s sister, their father’s house, although it was a peasant house, always stood out among other houses for its size. In old photographs you can see a two-story house. That big house has not survived to this day. In 1910, the poet’s father built a smaller house in its place. It is this house that is associated with Yesenin’s image of a “golden log hut.” There is a memorial plaque on the house: “ The great Russian poet Sergei Aleksandrovich Yesenin (1895-1925) was born and lived here. ».
The exhibition in the house restores as accurately as possible the atmosphere of a peasant hut of that time. The house stands in the middle of a garden in which a temporary hut has been preserved, where the poet’s family took refuge after a fire that destroyed the house. In front of the house there is a poplar planted by Sergei Yesenin in 1924.

Museum of the poem "Anna Snegina"

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Sergei Yesenin, a new exhibition was opened in the village of Konstantinovo - a museum of the poem “Anna Snegina”. There are no more than ten similar museums dedicated to literary characters around the world. The Museum of the poem “Anna Snegina” is unique in that it was opened in a manor house that belonged to the prototype of the main character of the poem - the landowner Lydia Ivanovna Kashina. The building dates back to the 19th century and is a classic “house with a mezzanine”. Initially, the estate was given over to a library, then, for many years, many organizations were located in the building (even a sewing workshop), until in 1995 a literary exhibition dedicated to the sacred poem “Anna Snegina” opened in the house. The exhibition was designed using original documents (letters and photographs) that belonged to landowner Lydia Ivanovna Kashina herself.

Zemstvo school

In the same 1995, another exhibition was opened on the territory of the Sergei Yesenin Museum - the zemstvo school. The one-story school building is located near the poet’s home. It was this school that young Sergei Yesenin went to in 1904 and studied there for 5 years. The exhibition located in the school building tells not only about the poet’s training. It presents exhibits dedicated to the entire education system of peasant children of that time. The zemstvo school in the village of Konstantinovo is the only restored primary zemstvo school in Russia.

The first mention of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Konstantinovo dates back to 1676. From the same records we can obtain information about the village as a whole: “in the parish of this church there are 79 households and a boyar’s courtyard, in the clergy there are 2 priests, 10 quarters of church land and 50 kopecks worth of hay fields.” There are no surviving records of the church building from that time, but it can be assumed that, like many village churches of the 17th century, it was a small wooden building. The first stone church building was built in those days when Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Golitsyn was the owner of the village of Konstantinovo. Although Prince Golitsyn introduced the concept of “Golitsyn Baroque” into architecture, the temple in the village of Konstantinovo was built in the style of classical temple architecture. The building of the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was built at the prince’s own expense according to the design of Ivan Yegorovich Starov in 1779.

General information about the Sergei Yesenin Museum in the village of Konstantinovo

More than 150 thousand people visit the museum every year. The All-Russian Poetry Festival dedicated to the poet’s birthday is held annually on the territory of the museum.
State Museum-Reserve S.A. Yesenin is one of the largest repositories of memorial, literary and historical monuments related to the life of Sergei Yesenin. This makes it possible to organize new thematic exhibitions in the museum’s expositions.
Since 1997, the museum has operated an exhibition and trade center that organizes exhibitions from the museum’s funds and personal exhibitions of artists.

ATTENTION

How to get there

By train or train from Moscow 3 hours 30 minutes.

From Moscow, from the Kazansky railway station, take the train going to Ryazan to the Rybnoye stop. Then take a bus to the village of Konstantinovo. Travel time: by train from two and a half to three hours. The bus ride takes about half an hour.

Alternative option. Take the Moscow-Ryazan Express train from the Kazan station to Ryazan. From Ryazan, from the Central bus station, take a bus to the village of Konstantinovo. The express train to Ryazan takes 2 hours and 50 minutes. From Ryazan by bus to the village of Konstantinovo.

Along with buses, minibuses follow the same route.

From Moscow by car - 170 km.

We leave Moscow by car. We are moving along Novoryazanskoye Highway. We pass the cities of Lyubertsy and Bronnitsy. In Bronnitsy we take the Small Moscow Ring (T-shaped intersection, turn left). We drive through Bronnitsy along Lev Tolstoy Street for about two and a half kilometers. We turn right, again onto the Novoryazanskoe highway towards Ryazan (Chelyabinsk). After 27 kilometers there will be a “loop”. We continue driving along Novoryazanskoye Highway. After 9 kilometers there are options. You can drive through Kolomna (this route is shorter. In addition, in Kolomna you can make a stop near McDonald's) Or you can drive along the Novoryazanskoe highway around Kolomna, without entering the city. This path is longer, but that does not mean that it is longer, just like that as a road of good quality and there are no traffic lights on it.

The next large settlement will be the city of Lukhovitsy. We pass it in a straight line and continue driving to the village of Sreznevo. In the village, at the traffic light, turn left following the sign “Sergei Yesenin Museum”. Next 23 kilometers. At all forks, choose the main road

Early in the morning on a sunny September day we set off on the road. The final point of our route was the village of Konstantinovo. The path ran through the ancient Russian city of Kolomna and passing through it in transit or on a detour would have been unforgivable. Wonderful weather and the season, which had not yet closed for most summer residents, immediately made themselves felt - on the Moscow Ring Road and right up to Bronnitsy, heavy traffic and traffic jams greatly slowed down traffic. The further path went without complications. The trip was spontaneous, so there was no time for preparation and theoretical familiarization with the literature on the sights that we were about to see. Historical facts known to us, plus an interest in new things and a desire to see famous and beautiful places, were our guides. The center of Kolomna is a tourist place, which we took advantage of - we parked a little further from the parking lot for tourist buses. With signs to the Kremlin and parking - everything is in order in the center of Kolomna. For souvenir lovers there are many shops (designed, of course, for foreigners, and prices accordingly). In the Kremlin and next to it, in connection with the nearby monasteries, there were many excursion groups, schoolchildren, a large number of wedding walks, people invited to christenings, that is, there were a lot of people, but somehow it was spacious and the feeling of a crowd was not overwhelming. This sense of space was enhanced by the stunning views of the surrounding area from the top of the hill where the city's historic center is located. After having a snack at McDonald's and resting a bit, we set off on our long journey. It ran through the city and Kolomna, even not in its tourist part, made a pleasant impression: very neat, clean, in some places modern, in others provincial, but still nice and pleasant. Autumn had already touched nature a little and the landscape along the road was very picturesque. As is almost always the case on country roads, there were many merchants along the route. They sold especially a lot of apples, onions, and local handicrafts. On the border of the Moscow and Ryazan regions, just beyond Lukhovitsy (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D1%83%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1% 86%D1%8B) drove into a huge traffic jam. Later it turned out that a huge truck overturned right on the road and the passage of this section was difficult and long. By the time they passed, it was already approaching five in the evening and there was less and less time left for a walk in Konstantinovo, it was necessary to hurry. The road after the turn from the Moscow-Chelyabinsk highway to Rybnoye and Konstantinovo is quite decent, with signs too, everything is in order. We got there without incident, parked in the parking lot (quite large, but if you arrive on a weekend morning, there may not be enough space) and went for a walk. When you get to such places, you realize that the journey is worth it. A place of stunning beauty and a sense of freedom, poetic and raising in the soul a sense of pride in the beauty of the Russian land. An amazing view of the Oka River opens from the steep bank. Possessing the gift of a great master of poetry, one of the most beloved poets, Sergei Yesenin, was rightfully proud of his homeland and glorified it in poems and poems.

I really, really love Yesenin... I want to visit the poet’s homeland, and we have only one homeland!

Beautiful places, it’s just a pity that when my tour group and I visited the Yesenin Museum, we were accompanied by an ugly guide - Margarita Anatolyevna, who, with fanatically crazy eyes and some kind of aspiration, read Yesenin’s poems to the point of insanity. In general, come to this village of Konstantinovo. There is such beauty there, such beautiful, clean, crystal air. Such amazingly beautiful spaces, simply indescribable!

In the village of Konstantinovo it is best to walk without guides. If you walk on your own, you can see more and breathe in the free air that the poet Sergei Yesenin lived in. In the Ryazan region everything is imbued with his creativity. Throughout the floodplain of the Oka River there is vast expanse and scope for inspiration for any creative person.

The whole family was there two days ago..... extraordinary beauty of nature... a lot of impressions... a paradise

Anyone who has reached the village once will never forget it. and will come back again and again. There is no such freedom anywhere else.

The last time we were in Konstantinovo was in the summer of 2014. What was unpleasantly striking was that all around, even the exit to the observation deck near the temple, was blocked by a fence and enormous women stood at the gate, blocking the gate with their bodies and without a ticket - 100 rubles - they were not allowed through the gate onto the high bank of the Oka. To just enter the territory of the estate, again, pay money. And, as I found out, this was introduced somewhere in 2013, from May to October, during the main tourist season. The Cerberus guarding all the passages are very rude. it becomes offensive and unpleasant. If Sergei Yesenin and his sisters, who dictated their own rules during their lifetime, had been alive, such trading in the poet’s memory would not have happened. This needs to be thought of - to block the exit to the shore of the Oka River!!. The impression is terrible. We have been to Konstantinovo before, during Soviet times, but there was nothing like this.

I read a lot of the works of the great Russian poet, but I have never been to his homeland! I will definitely fill this gap!

The whole family was in Konstantinovo on October 3, 2015 at the All-Russian Poetry Festival dedicated to the 120th anniversary of S. Yesenin. I was very impressed by the nature, the very atmosphere of these Yesenin places, the “wattle fence near the slope”, the Russian “white birches”, the vast expanses of Ryazan, the wind that literally knocked me off my feet, blowing me off the high Prioksky banks. At various venues there are performances by creative groups from Moscow, Ryazan, and elsewhere. Artists read poetry, modern poets and writers receive prizes, officials make speeches. People are buying and selling something all around, the fuss of the fair, noise and din, songs and dances. In general, it is a national holiday. Magnificent performance “Hooligan. Confession" performed by S. Bezrukov and his comrades, 2 hours in one breath. A huge crowd stood and watched, their attention undiminished. By the way, about the crowd: it turned out to be impossible to enter Konstantinovo by car, already from 11:00 Moscow time, due to the huge number of applicants. We had to park the car on the side of the highway and walk to the village for at least a kilometer (!). The most desperate ones drove up to the outskirts right along the recently mown field. Impressed by the holiday, we didn’t even visit any of the Constantine museums, leaving it until next time. We bought some kind of Ryazan apple marmalade or marshmallow (?) from a local resident of Antonov and at the fair and went home.

I visited the native places of Sergei Yesenin. I was very worried when entering the estate house... I was still waiting to meet the poet... But... Alas... The white birch tree under your window has grown up. I quietly knocked on the house. After waiting a little, she opened the door.. Where are you? Friend - Seryoga.. I came... Believe me, Many years have flown by.. . I waited a long time to come to you... Everything is going on... Things are going on... I enter quietly... The floorboards are creaking, It keeps telling me that the spirit of the poet is sleeping in the house... as if someone is sleeping in the house. The silence is such that my ears are ringing, I dreamed of this meeting in many dreams. Time has always separated you and me, I was born later... The older me came.. Your age is noted in books and poems, The day breathes frost and the fire in the stoves, So warm, cozy, flowers on the table - Ah! Sergey Yesenin! Dreams have come true! I go to the window, it’s winter outside, there’s a white birch tree standing there alone. She covered herself with snow, as if it were silver... Here, in the museum, it’s crowded - everyone goes to your house.

Last year I was in the village of Konstantinovo, I was unlucky with the weather, I had to leave earlier than planned, I didn’t have time to visit all the museums. For a whole year I dreamed of going there again. I'm going there again in three weeks, I can't wait!

I hope that I will come to your homeland Sergei! S. Yesenin Seryozha, dear Seryozha, Nature created you this way,

What I felt with my heart and skin

All Rus' and passed it on to others..

Penetrating bloom

Her gardens, her fields,

Half sad guy

Unflying cranes.

You are the golden autumn

Fresh spring birch sap

And the depths of the river and the sky,

Lakes of sparkling sand.

You willows cry and the blizzard swirls

You are a young green maple,

Razdolnoy Rus' reflection,

You are a golden ray of sunshine...

No, the flame of caress has not gone out,

Your trace was not washed away by the autumn rain

And you are next to us today

You live like our contemporary.

And I listen to the unique life

I wanted to say about you:

You loved your homeland and land,

How few people knew how to love...

Finally I had a chance to visit the village of Konstantinovo. We plunged into the atmosphere of the poet’s everyday life. We were pleasantly surprised at how good the condition of the open-air museum is. Nature amazed me with its beauty, and the view from the steep bank of the river and the fields running away beyond the horizon defies any description at all. Even the cloudy weather couldn't dampen the mood. We advise everyone to visit the birthplace of the great poet. Returning home, we took out Yesenin’s books. I read Anna Snegina this evening and was inspired.