The history of this house dates back to 1820. On the site of a plot that burned down in 1812 along Staraya Basmannaya Street, titular counselor Pelageya Ketcher is building a solid wooden mansion on a stone foundation. In 1824, it was rented by Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, the elder brother of Alexander Sergeevich's father.

The Vasily Pushkin House-Museum on Staraya Basmannaya Street opened on June 6, 2013, the birthday of the great poet. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin has repeatedly visited this house, he was loved and cordially received here. By the way, he was born not far from him — in a building at the intersection of Gospitalny Lane and Malaya Pochtovaya Street.

It was to his “Parnassus father” that the poet came immediately after his exile in 1826. Vasily Lvovich was at that time a famous writer and poet. His work “Dangerous Neighbor” was copied manually by residents of the capital.

There is not much left of the original furnishings of the house — the layout of the house, the old doors, the tiled stove in the living room and part of the oak parquet. Everything else — things, pieces of furniture, books of the 18th and 19th centuries, paintings, icons — was collected in different places. With their help, restorers recreated the interiors of the rooms and the atmosphere of a hospitable house. The main hall, living room, dining room, valet room, mezzanine floor — the exquisite decoration of the rooms is made with authentic items of that time. A set of Karelian birch upholstered embroidered by the embroiderers of the Sretensky Monastery, canvases by painters of the XVIII century, ancient silver appliances that belonged to Vasily Pushkin's sister Elizaveta Lvovna, on the dining table there is a dummy of a roast goose, a symbol of the literary community “Arzamas”, which included Alexander Sergeevich's uncle. The poet himself ate at such a table. The mezzanine floor room, equipped for a nursery, is interesting. This is a small fairy-tale world with a collection of toys of that time, children's clothes and paintings.

Vasily Lvovich was a very educated person. He was fluent in French and was the first to translate his nephew's poems. The owner of the house had an extensive collection of books, from which we have survived one original copy — the book “The Theater of Mr. de Lannou”, published in 1757 in Paris. The title page of the book has the signature of the owner of the book.

The house was visited by outstanding people of that time — Princes Vyazemsky and Shalikov, Baron Delvig, Adam Mitskevich, Nikolai Karamzin, Konstantin Batyushkov and others.

My uncle died in 1830, on the eve of his nephew's wedding. The poet was deeply mourned: “Never before has any uncle died so inappropriately.”