The Rimsky-Korsakov Museum-Apartment is currently the only composer’s museum in Saint Petersburg. The museum is located in the five-story courtyard wing of house 28, apartment 39, where Rimsky-Korsakov lived with his family from 1893 until his last days in 1908. Here, 11 of the composer’s 15 operas were created, including: “Sadko,” “The Tale of Tsar Saltan,” and “The Tsar’s Bride.”

After the death of the composer and his wife, the apartment was communal for 50 years, but all original items and furniture were carefully preserved by the composer’s descendants. On December 27, 1970, at their initiative, a memorial museum was opened in the apartment on Zagorodny Avenue, which, due to the authenticity of its interiors, stands alongside the largest composer museums in Russia — the Tchaikovsky House-Museum in Klin and the Scriabin Museum-Apartment in Moscow.

The memorial part of the museum consists of 4 rooms — the study, the living room, the dining room, and the hallway. The rest of the apartment has been reconstructed and houses an exhibition hall presenting numerous documents about the composer’s life and work, as well as a concert hall with 50 seats. In Rimsky-Korsakov’s study, you can find his desk, favorite armchair, an antique bureau crafted by Tikhvin masters, and a commemorative address from Vrubel’s work, gifted on the 35th anniversary of the composer’s creative activity. The main decoration of the living room is a “Becker” brand grand piano, on which Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Glazunov, Stravinsky, and Nikolai Andreyevich himself played. On the walls of the dining room are painted portraits of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ancestors: he belonged to an ancient noble family known in Russia since the late 14th century. On the dining table are personalized cutlery and commemorative souvenirs: a silver salt cellar and a cracker box.

The museum recreates not only the external appearance of the Rimsky-Korsakov apartment but also the creative atmosphere that prevailed there. For many years, this house was one of the cultural centers of Petersburg. Guests of Rimsky-Korsakov (composers Glazunov and Lyadov, Rachmaninoff and Taneyev, painters Serov and Repin, singers Chaliapin and Zabela-Vrubel) actively participated in musical evenings known as “Korsakov Wednesdays.” When Fyodor Chaliapin came here, up to 100 guests sometimes gathered in the living room, and neighborhood children living one floor above even lay on the floor trying to hear the famous singer’s voice. After concerts, guests moved to the dining room for tea. Sometimes these tea parties lasted until dawn.

The concert life of the museum remains diverse today. Continuing the tradition, concerts from the series “Evenings at the House on Zagorodny” are held on Wednesdays in the concert hall, featuring soloists from the city’s opera theaters and symphony orchestras. The museum hosts Saturday subscriptions for schoolchildren and organizes concerts of young performers from the series “Musical Youth of Petersburg.” On the composer’s birthday — March 18 — concerts are held in the memorial living room.

Sources:

https://www.citywalls.ru/house17188.html

https://www.culture.ru/institutes/21698/muzei-kvartira-n-a-rimskogo-korsakova