What to See in Taganrog - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in Taganrog, Russia. The birthplace of Anton Chekhov is the place in Taganrog, Russia, where the famous writer Anton Chekhov was born. It is now a writer's house museum. The outbuilding on the territory of a property on Chekhov Street in Taganrog was built in 1859 of wattle and daub, plastered and whitened. The area taken up by the small outbuilding is 30.5 sq. meters. The house and grounds were owned by the merchant Gnutov in 1860, and by the petit bourgeois Kovalenko in 1880-1915.

Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov and his family (his wife Yevgeniya Yakovlevna and their two sons—four-year-old Alexander Chekhov and 2-year-old Nikolay Chekhov)—rented the outbuilding in December 1859. Anton Chekhov was born in this house on January 17, 1860. In March, 1861, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov and his family moved into another apartment.

In 1910, a memorial plate was placed on the house of Chekhov thanks to the initiative of the Chekhov Circle in Taganrog, formed by the writer Yevgeny Garshin in 1905. In 1916, the Taganrog City Council supported the initiative of the Chekhov Circle and acquired the house and grounds on Chekhov Street 69 to conserve the house of Anton Chekhov. In December 1920, the house was freed from all tenants, and a renovation followed in 1921. In 1924, the first exhibition telling of the writer's youth was opened.

In 1935 Maria Chekhova and Olga Knipper came to visit the home city of Chekhov, Taganrog, to participate at the events commemorating the 75th anniversary of Anton Chekhov's birth. Within the framework of the visit, Maria Chekhova presented to the Taganrog memorial museum several Anton Chekhov or Chekhov family memorabilia from White Dacha in Yalta.

As part of the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Chekhov's birth, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev visited the House memorial museum on January 29, 2010.^[2]

Museum in Taganrog, Russia. The Chekhov Shop is a museum in Taganrog, Russia. This is a two-storey house where the famous Russian writer Anton Chekhov stayed with his family from 1869 to 1874.

The building was built in late 1840s and is located on the crossing of Alexandrovskaya (formerly Monastirskaya Street) and Gogol Street (formerly Yarmarochniy Pereulok). The Chekhov family rented this building from the merchant Ivan Moiseev. The family moved into this building due to commercial interests of Anton Chekhov’s father. The shop’s entry featured a sign "Tea, sugar, coffee, and other colonial goods".

When Anton’s father was away on business, he had to replace him serving as shop assistant and keeping the accounting records. It is on the first floor of this house that the future world-famous playwright wrote his first stories and staged amateur theatricals with other Chekhov family children or with gymnasium fellow students.

November 3, 1977 museum "The Chekhov Shop" was open offering visitors objects and documents related to Chekhov youth years and life of the Chekhov family.^[3]

Monument in Taganrog, Russia. The Monument to Faina Ranevskaya, designed and sculpted by David Begalov is located in front of Faina Ranevskaya's birth house in Taganrog, Russia.

Faina Ranevskaya (1896-1984) is recognized as one of the greatest comic actors of the 20th century. She was born on August 27 (August 15 - Old Style), 1896 in the city of Taganrog in the Nikolaevskaya street, 12 (now Frunze Street, 10).

August 29, 1986, a memorial plate dedicated to Ranevskaya was placed on her birth house in the city of Taganrog. Taganrog Local Government is planning to open a museum dedicated to Ranevskaya in the near future. A monument to Faina Ranevskaya (by the artist David Begalov) in front of the house was unveiled on May 16, 2008 within the framework of the First International Ranevskaya Drama Festival "The Great Province".^[9]

Mansion in Russia. Alexander I Palace in Taganrog is a one-story stone building in Russian classicism style on Grecheskaya Street, 40 where Russian emperor Alexander I died in 1825.

The mansion was built in 1806 and belonged to different owners. The most significant of them was the Governor of Taganrog Pyotr Papkov. Emperor Alexander I of Russia stayed there twice – in 1818 and 1825. After his death the building was bought by his widow empress consort Elizabeth Alexeievna and the first memorial museum in Russia dedicated to the Emperor was established there. Among the visitors to the palace of Alexander I were the Russian emperors Alexander II of Russia and Alexander III, poets Alexander Pushkin and Vasily Zhukovsky, artist Ivan Aivazovsky, People’s commissar of enlightenment Anatoly Lunacharsky, and many others.

For 12 years beginning in 1864 an amateur choir conducted by Pavel Chekhov sang in the Church of Exaltation of the Cross, which was established within the mansion to honor the emperor. At the end of 1860s – beginning of 1870s Alexander, Nicolas and Anton Chekhov sang there in choral parts of descant and alto. In 1928 the memorial museum was closed and some of the exhibits were moved into the Alferaki Palace.

The building of the Palace of Alexander I houses a children’s sanatorium called “Beryozka”.^[13]

The Tchaikovsky House in Taganrog is a historical mansion in the historical downtown Taganrog on Ulitsa Grecheskaya, 56. The mansion was built in early 1870s by the project of the architect Petrov. It was owned by the merchant Sarandino until mid-1890s.

From 1883 until 1894, the building was rented by the captain of the first rank Ippolit Tchaikovsky who served in Taganrog representing the Russian Society of navigation and trade. Pyotr Tchaikovsky came to Taganrog and stayed at this house three times: in 1886, 1888 and in 1890.

The building was mentioned in one of Anton Chekhov's letters to his cousin Georgy Chekhov in 1895:

If I were rich, I would certainly buy the house where Ippolit Tchaikovsky used to live.

The mansion was damaged during the 1927 Crimean earthquakes and as consequence, the left wing was demolished.

In 1975 the music department of the Chekhov Library and the concert hall moved into the building. A memorial room, where Pyotr Tchaikovsky stayed was transformed into a small museum dedicated to Tchaikovsky family and their relations with Anton Chekhov. The museum was inaugurated on May 1, 1976.

In 2009-2010 started a major renovation of the building, which was aimed at reconstruction of the original design the way it was in late 19th century, thus removing the weather vane which was placed around 1976/1977 and which was too heavy for the old building.^[30]

Museum in Taganrog, Russia. Taganrog Museum of Art was officially inaugurated in 1968, but the basis of the museum collection was formed by the end of the 19th century, when the art department of the Taganrog's city museum was established.

Renowned playwright and short-story writer Anton Chekhov played a major role in establishing the collection of his home city through his connections in St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and his friends like Mark Antokolski etc.

The most important part of the museum collection was formed in the Soviet Union time, and features two departments - Russian art before the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Soviet art.

The whole collection of art was looted from the museum during the Occupation of Taganrog in 1941–1943.

Since 1975, the museum of art is located at the former mansion of merchant Anton Handrin on Alexandrovskaya street 56.^[31]

Historical landmark in Taganrog, Russia. The Depaldo Stone Steps in Taganrog in Russia were constructed in 1823. They were the project of the Italian architect Francesco Boffo, with the funding of Taganrog's Greek merchant Gerasim Depaldo, at the crossroads of Greek Street and Depaldo Street in Taganrog. The stairway begins up on the hill in downtown and goes down ending near the Sea of Azov foreshore.

In Imperial Russia they were the famous stairs in South Russia, similar to the Potemkin Stairs in Odessa.

In World War II, the Old Stone Steps were heavily damaged, but stayed one of the major tourist attractions of Taganrog. In the 1970s they were reconstructed, but not finished. The new major reconstruction was made in 2005. During the latest reconstruction all the old stone steps were replaced by new stones.

At the top of the steps on Grecheskaya Street stands a sundial (1833).

One of the short stories written by Soviet Russian Ivan Vasilenko titled Sundial (Russian: Солнечные часы) was dedicated to the sundial near the Old Stone Steps.^[33]