A House Sergei Yesenin Visited

Why stop at making museums out of houses where writers lived? Visited is good enough, right? Behold the Sergei Yesenin museum in Tashkent. Why? It seems the acclaimed Russian poet, Yesenin, visited his buddy, Alexander Shiryaevets, there in Tashkent in May 1921. Boom, museum to you!

Perhaps Yesenin gets a museum due to his fame as one of Russia's most beloved poets, a writer of lyrical works of village life in the face of urbanization, industrialization. Comrade, tells of the olde days. And then there's the untimely death at age 30 in a hotel room in Leningrad, ruled a suicide, perhaps political murder. Four wives by then. The James Dean, Oscar Wilde of Russian poetry. Scandal!

Portrait of a rebel poet as a young man.

If only the humble Tashkent museum was as exciting. Some blah exhibits in a few rooms.

There's a period sitting room re-creation. From the Tashkent house? Not really. Did Yesenin sit on the furniture, have a raucous party, host the creme of cultural Tashkent? Doubtful. The room is there to give a visitor a feel for the time period. Done.

Old pictures offer a more direct connection. School chums and past loves?

The final end: a death mask.