Paustovsky. The Way Home

The exhibition presents photographs of Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky (1892–1968) and the places associated with his life and travels. All the images are dated no later than the early 1970s. The exhibition allows us not only to get acquainted with the places that Paustovsky traveled to, but also to see those places just as he knew and loved them. This exhibition is a kind of travel photo diary. Each image is supplemented by quotations from the works, letters, and diaries of Paustovsky. The photographs on display have been preserved in the collections of the Moscow Literary Museum Center of K. G. Paustovsky.

“The First World War began. As the youngest son in my family, according to the laws of the time, I was not drafted. The war went on, and it was impossible to sit at the boring university lectures. I was languishing in my bleak Moscow apartment, so I rushed out into the midst of the life that I felt to be around me, but about which I knew so little… I took the first opportunity to break out of by meager domestic existence and became a Moscow tram driver.”— K. G. Paustovsky, “A Few Words about Myself”

“Sevastopol! Every time it appeared to me as something completely new and unlike my previous impressions… I went there several times, lived and loved the city, as my second home… I was struck by the fact that even the slightest touch of a human hand to the blessed earth of Sevastopol led to wondrous things: quaint alleys, stone stairs drowning in wisteria, cosy corners of the roads, the rapid game of the sun’s rays in the windows of the houses, balconies, where little green lizards bask, the twilight of the cafés, their signs, like children’s pictures, painted in thick watercolor.”— K. G. Paustovsky, “A Time of Great Expectations”

“From Chernomorskaya street you had a view of the sea, magnificent in all kinds of weather. On the bottom left you could see the Langeron [a beach in Odessa] and the Quarantine Harbor, where the old pier, worn smooth by the wind, went bending into the sea. On the right the steep red banks, overgrown with saltbush and goosefoot, went away to Arcadia and the Fountains [beach areas], to misty beaches, where the sea often washed up floating mines that had broken from their anchors.” K. G. Paustovsky. Story of a Life. Time of Great Expectations

“This paradise was called Abkhazia. We knew little about it in that time… The vegetation hit you with its dizzying smells, bizarre shapes, and huge size. Behind the house of Mlle Jaloux—the last house in the town on Mt. Cherniavsky—stood tall bushes and fragrant azaleas. Jackals would hide in these thickets. My head used to ache from the smell of these azaleas. Behind the azalea fields there was the dark wall of a lacquered bamboo grove. At the slightest breeze, the bamboo leaves did not rustle, like our northern foliage; they whispered.”— K. G. Paustovsky, “Rush to the South”

“Past Eshera the road was completely broken. We got out of the mail-coach and proceeded on foot.” The day seemed to have been drenched in silence. Even the cicadas were silent, and the heat made no sound. Usually it gives off a quiet squeak, as when water seeps into a narrow gap. The sea was silent too, overheated by the sun. It was being gradually drawn out into steam. The monastery was deserted. In the garden, in small cement basins, where water from the mountain spring had been brought for watering, goldfish were swimming... All around it smelled like heated cypress, as churches are wont to do. In the cathedral the services were still going on, but there were only a few monks left.” K. G. Paustovsky. Story of a Life. Rush to the South

“In these houses one could “rest one’s soul,” as people said in the old days… The garden outside the windows, and beyond the garden, the railway, the station crossing, the rare clip-clop of freight trains, and the loud puffing of old steam engines… From the window of the doctor’s office you could see such great distances, and such soft rounded hills, that your heart stood still from looking at them. And at the foot of these vistas, ridges, ravines, and hills, the river Bystraya Sosna flowed, in the spring, in a wide band under the railway bridge.”— K. G. Paustovsky, “Book of Wanderings”

“The first time I came to the Meshchora region, it was from the north, from Vladimir. Past Gus-Khrustalny, at the quiet station of Tuma, I transferred to a narrow- gauge train. It was a train from the time of Stephenson. The locomotive, like a samovar, whistled with a boyish falsetto. The locomotive had an insulting nickname: “Gelding”. It did indeed seem like an old gelding. It groaned and halted at every turn... The forest stood in silence around the suffocating “gelding”. The smell of wild carnations, heated by the sun, filled the cars... The narrow gauge in the Meshchora woods in the most leisurely railway in the Union. The stations are littered with resinous logs and smell of freshly felled timber and wild forest flowers.” K. G. Paustovsky. The Meshchora Region

“We spent several days in the cordon, catching fish in the Shuya and hunting around Lake Orsa, where there were only a few centimeters of clean water, and beneath that, a bottomless viscous ooze... But we spent most of our time on the River Pra. I have seen many beautiful and remote places in Russia, but hardly shall I see a river as pristine and mysterious as the Pra. The dry pine forests on its banks are mixed with ancient oak groves and thickets of willow, alder, and aspen. The tall pines, knocked down by the wind, lay like cast copper bridges on its brown, but crystal-clear water.” K. G. Paustovsky. Cordon 273

“Yalta exists for me only because it was home to Anton Chekhov, a brilliant writer, whose name always has been and will be synonymous for me with high culture, self-improvement, and the wonderful future of our country. The words of Tyutchev apply to Anton Pavlovich, as well as to Pushkin: “The heart of Russia will not forget him. Like a first love.” Anton Pavlovich had the great fortune to have a sister like Maria Pavlovna, the keeper of the house and the beautiful traditions of Chekhov. ” K. Paustovsky

“In Paris, I realized that my acquaintance with this global city strengthened my love for Russia... Everything increased this love, even the gardens of Versailles. They shone with their geometric splendor and awakened the silent memory of modest provincial gardens, which smell at sunset of damp nettle and mint... With so much greed I was immersed in the life of Paris, and my heart often skipped a beat when I had visions of an imminent meeting with the golden leafy waterfalls on the deserted reaches of the Oka.” K. G. Paustovsky. Fleeting View of Paris

“A great Russian writer died in France, a writer of classical force and simplicity: Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. He died under an alien sky in needless and bitter exile, which he had created for himself, in unbearable longing for Russia and its people. Who knows how much despair this outwardly calm and reserved person suffered within himself from this separation. Let us not judge Bunin. His fatal mistake is not worth recalling. This is not important now. What matters is that he is ours, that we returned him to our people, our Russian literature, and now he will occupy a high place in that literature, which belongs to him by right.” K. G. Paustovsky. Ivan Bunin

“There were books here in all the languages of the world. There were books from all periods... The cool crowns of the plane trees were rustling over the stands of books. The smell of the bindings (the combined smell of glue, coloring, and time) merged with the astringent and cold breath of the mud on the banks of the Seine. From this mud a chain of air bubbles rushed to the surface, just as in any peat lake somewhere in our country in the Ryazan region, in the faraway land of Meshchora.” K. G. Paustovsky. Fleeting View of Paris