ABRAMTSEVO STATE, HISTORICAL, ARTISTIC AND LITERARY MUSEUM-RESERVE

OFFICIAL SITE

 

The Abramtsevo Museum is located near the town of Sergiev Posad 60 kilometers (37 miles) to the north-east of Moscow.

The estate was laid out on the bank of the River Vorya in the middle of the 18th century and soon became famous due to its owners. The writer Sergey Aksakov purchased Abramtsevo in 1843. He created here his best works: notes on angling, hunting and autobiographical stories. In the days of Aksakov, writers Nikolay Gogol and Ivan Turgenev, historian Mikhail Pogodin, actor Mikhail Schepkin and other celebrated contemporaries were his guests in Abramtsevo.

The railroad magnate and patron of arts Savva Mamontov bought Abramtsevo in 1870. The new owner played host to artists Vasily Polenov, Viktor Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin, Ilya Ostroukhov, Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin, Mikhail Nesterov, Mikhail Vrubel and other creative personalities who united to an informal community known as the Abramtsevo Colony. Participants of the Colony created paintings, drawings, sculptures, architectural projects, decorative and applied art articles.

They collected peasant handicrafts and staged amateur performances. The foundation of Abramtsevo joinery and pottery started the revival and development of traditional Russian crafts – woodcarving and majolica. Abramtsevo was nationalized and turned into a museum after the October revolution, 1917. Within the 20th century Abramtsevo gave inspiration to the painters Igor Grabar, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Ilya Mashkov, the sculptors Vera Mukhina, Boris Korolev and many other prominent artists. Nowadays the Museum occupies about 50 hectares (0,2 square miles) along with a park and picturesque outskirts of the Vorya River and comprises architectural monuments created in the 18–19th centuries. The Museum`s collection accounts for more than 25 000 items: pictures, drawings, sculptures, arts and crafts, photographs and archives of previous owners..