|
The House on Bolshaya Bronnaya
It’s important the curtain be down
And then, when I’ve made my last bow,
You must raise it to show..
There is nothing but emptiness...
For I would think it suspicious to see
Garages, locks and loads of mahogany.
Sviatoslav Richter
Sviatoslav Richter and Nina Dorliak moved into this
apartment on the sixteenth floor of 2/6 Bolshaya
Bronnaya in the early 1970s. Richter loved this part
of Moscow, which is described in the old student
song. «Now there’s a fine district in fair Moscow
town, Bolshaya Kozikha, that is its name. As soon
as the streetlights begin to go on, the students all
throng there from dusk until dawn.» There are still
several reminders of those distant days: Girsch’s
brick houses where students could find cheap
lodgings, facades with ornamental mouldings, art
nouveau mansions. The topography of the streets
has not changed much either, as you can see from
the top floor. There is still a pair of binoculars on the
windowsill of the music room. Richter enjoyed this
wonderful wiew of the Moscow courtyards, roofs and
squares, and the street life below.
The building where he lived is a fairly ordinary
one made of brick. But as soon as you cross the
threshold of his apartment you enter a different
world. Do not expect lavish furnishings and fittings.
The passages and study are lined with built-in cupboards containing his archive: letters, photographs
and concert programmes. Everything here conveys
the personality of the owner, his way of life, the
special energy of this man whom Yuri Bashmet
calls «a safe conduct to truth in art». Andrei Vozne
sensky sees Richter as a symbol of the Russian
intelligentsia, who live on the «Richter scale».
Back to contents
| 
