An antique polished table with a round top and curly legs was donated to the Omsk State Museum of History and Local Lore by MargarIta DolInino-Ivnskaya, granddaughter of Andrei Stackenschneider in 1961. Later, the piece became a part of the collection of the Omsk State Dostoevsky Literature Museum.
Andrei Stackenschneider was a famous Saint Petersburg architect. His house was one of the most famous literary and artistic salons in the city. The so-called ‘Saturdays’ hosted by StAckenschneider were attended by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ivan Goncharov, Ivan Turgenev, and many other creatives. Young artists, architects, and actors would often show up. The dining room was used for giving amateur performances.
Dostoevsky made acquaintance with Andrei Stackenschneider in 1860 and quite often visited his literary salon ever since. The salon’s host was Stackenschneider’s elder daughter Elena. DostoEvsky’s friendship with her was one of the brightest spots in his life. Leo Panteleev, a publisher and social activist who would also often visit the salon in the early 1860s, shared his memory of her: “Back in my days, the life and soul of the “Saturdays” was elder daughter Elena. She was an extremely nice person very good at literature, and she had a sharp feeling for art.’ ‘Every Tuesday, she received many outstanding literary figures who recited their works. …Fyodor Mikhailovich loved and respected Elena Andreyevna a lot for her eternal kindness and modesty, ’ claimed Anna Dostoevskaya, the writer’s second wife.
This is what writer Lidia Veselitskaya (who wrote under the pen-name V. Mikulich) noted about Elena Stackenschneider: “Clever, kind, and welcoming… nice, gentle but not unctuous, kind but not expansive, clever but not arrogant.”
The StAckenschneiders and the Dostoevskys bonded a lot and carried on a correspondence. It is known that Elena’s brother Adrian, a trained lawyer, gave Dostoevsky advice when the latter was working on the episodes of the trial of DmItry Karamazov. In addition to that, Dostoevsky was a godfather of Boris, Stackenschneider’s grandson.
Dostoevsky frequented the Stackenschneider salon until 1862 when the Stackenschneider family moved to Gatchina suburbs. Their meetings almost stopped but the thread was picked up in the early 1870s through the mediation of Dostoevsky’s good friend, writer Mikhail Pokrovsky.
On January 27, 1881, Elena Stackenschneider and Dostoevsky met one last time when she came to see the writer on his deathbed.
