Alexander Pushkin: A Life in Six Places

The Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum opened on 19 October 1811, and Pushkin was in its first class. He studied under David Mara, known in Russia as David de Boudry. His first poem was published in 1814, when he was 15, and by the time he finished school in 1817 his talent was already widely recognised. Among the first graduates was also Alexander Gorchakov.

Pushkin was sent into exile on his mother's estate of Mikhailovskoye, near Pskov, from 1824 to 1826. There he worked on his verse-novel Eugene Onegin and in 1825 wrote the drama Boris Godunov. The estate was burnt down, but it opened as a museum after being declared a state monument on 17 March 1922. Today the main house, service buildings and landscape park are preserved within the museum reserve.

Visitor guidance: Part of the Mikhaylovskoye Museum Reserve near Pushkinskiye Gory.

Around 1828 Pushkin met Natalia Goncharova, one of the most talked-about beauties of Moscow. An outbreak of cholera and other circumstances delayed the wedding for a year after the engagement. The ceremony took place on 18 February 1831 (Old Style) in the Great Ascension Church on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street.

On 27 January (8 February) 1837, Pushkin fought d'Anthès with pistols at the Black River, on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. The rules of the duel let each man advance and fire when he chose. D'Anthès fired first, and the bullet entered Pushkin's hip and penetrated his abdomen. A Russian source places the fight in a copse near a dacha, and an obelisk now stands in a small park at the junction of Kolomyazhsky Prospekt and the railway line.

Location precision: The Black River is a small river in Saint Petersburg, and the exact ground of the duel is described only as a copse near a dacha; the pin marks the memorial obelisk.

Visitor guidance: The memorial obelisk is in a public square near Chyornaya Rechka metro station.

Wounded, Pushkin was brought home to number 12 on the Moika embankment at half past six in the evening. Two days later, at 2.45 pm on 29 January (10 February), he died of peritonitis. About 50,000 people came to the farewell ceremony. His last home is now a museum.

Visitor guidance: The apartment is a museum, with the address Moika embankment 12.

Pushkin was buried in the grounds of Svyatogorsky Monastery in present-day Pushkinskiye Gory, near Pskov, beside his mother. The monastery was founded in 1569 on the order of Ivan the Terrible. The poet found his rest on the morning of 6 (18) February 1837. His tomb was declared a state monument in 1922 and is part of the Mikhaylovskoye Museum Reserve.