Tchaikovsky: From Votkinsk to Saint Petersburg

Tchaikovsky was born here on 7 May 1840, in Votkinsk, then in Vyatka Governorate and now in Udmurtia. His father managed the ironworks in Kamsko-Votkinsk. In 1844 the family hired the governess Fanny Dürbach, who saved his earliest known compositions, and he began piano lessons at five. The museum estate is dedicated to the composer who spent his early childhood in the town.

Visitor guidance: The museum estate is in Votkinsk; check opening hours before a long trip.

In 1850 his parents sent Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg, hoping for a civil-service career. Its classes sat in six buildings along the Fontanka Quay. His mother died of cholera in 1854, when he was 14, and he wrote a waltz in her memory. He graduated on 10 June 1859 as a titular counselor, a low rung on the civil-service ladder.

Location precision: The school's six buildings stood along the Fontanka Quay; the pin marks the quay by them, not a confirmed building.

Visitor guidance: See the Fontanka embankment from the street.

The Conservatory opened in 1862, and Tchaikovsky enrolled in its premiere class, studying instrumentation and composition with Rubinstein. He won a silver medal for a cantata on Schiller's Ode to Joy and graduated in 1865. The pin marks the present building on Theatre Square, put up in the 1890s, so it is not the hall where he studied. A bronze monument to Rimsky-Korsakov stands outside.

Location precision: The student-era conservatory was housed elsewhere; the pin marks today's building on Theatre Square, built in the 1890s.

Visitor guidance: The building is on Theatre Square next to the Mariinsky; the exterior is easy to see.

The post paid only 50 rubles a month, but Tchaikovsky took it. When the Moscow Conservatory opened on 1 September 1866, he was appointed professor of theory and harmony. The school moved in 1877 to Prince Vorontsov's house on Nikitskaya Street. It has carried his name since 7 May 1940, and a monument to him stands in front of the Great Hall, unveiled in 1954.

Visitor guidance: The Great Hall hosts concerts; the monument stands outside on Nikitskaya Street.

Opened in 1860, the Mariinsky became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th-century Russia. Two of Tchaikovsky's operas had their world premieres in this house: The Queen of Spades in 1890 and Iolanta in 1892. The theatre still stands in Saint Petersburg and the opera and ballet companies still perform there.

Visitor guidance: Performances run at the theatre; check its schedule for tickets.

In May 1892 Tchaikovsky wrote that he had rented a house in Klin, a quiet place to work outside Moscow. Here he wrote the Symphony No. 6 in B minor, the Pathétique. On 7 October 1893 he left for Moscow and then Saint Petersburg to conduct the symphony's premiere. His brother Modest turned the house into the first musical memorial museum in Russia.

Visitor guidance: The house-museum is open to visitors; winners of the Tchaikovsky Competition are invited to play his piano.

Tchaikovsky died in Saint Petersburg on 6 November 1893, aged 53. He was buried in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, near the graves of fellow composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka and Modest Mussorgsky. The cemetery opened in 1823. The cause of death is debated, and the musicologist Roland John Wiley wrote: "We do not know how Tchaikovsky died."

Visitor guidance: The cemetery is a museum necropolis at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra; check entry rules.