It is of no coincidence, Konstantin Paustovsky called Yelets ‘the city of Bunin’. All the ancestors of Ivan Alekseevich were associated with Yelets and Yelets Uezd. As a five-year-old child, the city became that sanctuary, where he made his first, unequaled in impressions, fabulous journey. It was here that the solemn ancient beauty of Russia was revealed to the young student, ‘… suddenly I felt Russia, felt her past and present, her wild, sometimes terrible yet somehow captivating peculiarities, and my own kinship, my intimate relation to her’.
The years spent while studying at the Yelets gymnasium could not vanish without leaving a trace in his memory. Young Ivan was excited about the antiquity of the city, its historical past, and the residents of Yelets having this amazing, first and foremost, national sense of pride that ‘they are Russians and live in Russia.’ The interior of the room, which he occupied in the house of A.O. Rostovtseva, was restored the way it was during his time being complemented with his school uniform, textbooks, writing materials, photographs, and postcards of Yelets of that time.
The years spent while studying at the Yelets gymnasium could not vanish without leaving a trace in his memory. Young Ivan was excited about the antiquity of the city, its historical past, and the residents of Yelets having this amazing, first and foremost, national sense of pride that ‘they are Russians and live in Russia.’ The interior of the room, which he occupied in the house of A.O. Rostovtseva, was restored the way it was during his time being complemented with his school uniform, textbooks, writing materials, photographs, and postcards of Yelets of that time.
Exhibits are marked with AR stickers for identification purposes.
