group photograph at a tennis court with Mikhail Bulgakov was taken in the summer of 1926 in the village of Kryukovo. It shows from left to right: Alexei Ponsov, Lyubov Belozerskaya, Dmitry Ponsov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Nikolay Lyamin, Ivan Nikitinsky, and Sergey Topleninov.
Every summer Bulgakov tried to leave Moscow to spend his vacations in nature. In 1926, together with his wife Lyubov Belozerskaya and sister Lyolya Mikhail Afanasyevich went to the resort of Miskhor in Crimea. But they had to leave there early: Bulgakov faced the hostility of neighbors in the holiday guesthouse. Lyubov Yevgenyevna recalled as Bulgakov’s greeting “Good morning, comrades” was returned by neighbors’ as,
Photo in Kryukovo on the tennis court (copy)
Creation period
the 1940s–1950s
Place of сreation
Moscow, the USSR
Dimensions
10,5x15,7 cm
Technique
photographic paper, graphite pencil, felt-tip pen; photoprint, manuscript
Collection
0
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Comrade to some, and a gray wolf to others.
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Several such incidents spoiled the vacation mood of the writer, and after returning to Moscow Bulgakov began to think how to spend the rest of the summer.
Nikolay Lyamin, a friend of Mikhail Afanasyevich and a literary scholar, recommended the writer to rest in Kryukovo, at the Ponsov family’s dacha near Moscow. Bulgakov and Belozerskaya went there to look around and were very pleased both with the nature and living conditions, as well as the friendly hosts. In Kryukovo the Bulgakov family liked it much more than in Miskhor: the company turned out to be cheerful and like-minded. Yelena Ponsova, the daughter of the dacha’s owners, married Viktor Stanitsyn, an actor of the Moscow Art Theater. She had met him at a banquet thrown by Bulgakov after the premiere of “The Days of the Turbins” in October 1926.
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The main venue for entertainment, meetings and conversations was the tennis court and benches near it, under birch trees. Games were serious: Zhenya, Vsevolod Verbitsky, Ruben Simonov, at that time slim and very agile. Returning the ball, he raised his leg high, in a goat-like manner and laughed rollingly. The composition of the games varied. Mikhail Afanasyevich once boasted that he could beat everyone if he wanted to, but he was quickly ‘exposed’. Lida reproached him that he held the racket ‘vertically’, that is, it sat perpendicular to the hand, instead of being an extension of the hand. Lida’s voice was often heard, ‘Maka, your racket’s ‘vertical’ again! ’ But once he showed class: falling down, he nevertheless hit back a difficult ball.
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Bulgakov maintained good relations with the Ponsovs. In the 1930s, Yelena Ponsova and her husband Viktor Stanitsyn visited Bulgakov in Nashchokinsky lane and received the writer at their home.
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Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
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Photo in Kryukovo on the tennis court (copy)
Creation period
the 1940s–1950s
Place of сreation
Moscow, the USSR
Dimensions
10,5x15,7 cm
Technique
photographic paper, graphite pencil, felt-tip pen; photoprint, manuscript
Collection
0
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