Nabokov in Berlin, house 22 on Nestorstraße, Berlin

Writer, poet, critic, translator, and entomologist Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899–1977), who lived permanently in Berlin from June 1922 to January 1937, changed many rented apartments and boarding houses during those years. After his marriage in 1926 to Vera Evseevna Slonim, the longest and most comfortable residence was with his wife and son Dmitry at the apartment located at Nestorstrasse, 22. This quiet and expensive district of Wilmersdorf, away from the center of Berlin, was liked by the entomologist Nabokov for its parks and proximity to Grunewald. Here he composed many of his stories, poems, essays, and wrote his mature Russian novels (under the pseudonym V. Sirin) "Despair" (1932), "Invitation to a Beheading" (1935), and most of "The Gift" (1938). Nestorstrasse, 22 became Nabokov’s last Berlin address.

In memory of the life of the outstanding Russian writer, a plaque with text in German and Russian has been installed on this house.

Nabokov’s biographer Brian Boyd provides the following details: “At the beginning of 1932, the Nabokovs, who had already been experiencing serious financial difficulties for some time, had to move to Westfälische Straße 29 into one room in an overcrowded apartment of the Kon family. This was temporary housing: one block away on Nestorstrasse lived Vera’s cousin Anna Feigina, whose neighbor, also a cousin but from another branch, was soon to get married and free up her rooms for the Nabokovs. In Berlin, it was customary to move from apartment to apartment on April 1 (or October 1), and April 1, 1932, broke all records for the number of people looking for more modest and affordable housing. However, the Nabokovs could not wait that long.”

At the end of August 1932, the Nabokovs took two rooms in a four-room apartment of pianist Anna Feigina on the third floor of the building at Nestorstrasse, 22. They lived in this apartment the longest, until January 1937, when Nabokov left for a literary tour in France and never returned to Germany.

Sources:

Boyd, B. Vladimir Nabokov. The Russian Years. St. Petersburg: Symposium, 2010. pp. 440-441

https://www.domrz.ru/map/berlin/adres-v-v-nabokova-/