In 2007, the Penza Literature Museum received valuable gifts from the widow of Anatoly Marienhof’s brother, Boris. These are a black-and-white photograph from the writer’s desk and the novel “The Shaved Man, ” which was banned by Soviet censors in 1930.

Anatoly Borisovich Marienhof was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1897. After the death of his mother in 1913, his father took the family to Penza where he became the representative of the Gramophone Company Limited, based in the United Kingdom. In Penza, Anatoly Marienhof enrolled at the Ponomaryov Gymnasium on Moskovskaya Street. Together with his friends, he published his first poems, short stories, and articles in their own literary magazine called “Mirage.” Although he lived in Penza for only a short time, it was during this period that he evolved as a writer. Later, he recalled,

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1916, Anatoly Marienhof entered the Law School at Moscow University. However, after studying there for six months, he went to the front where he joined a team of engineers constructing roads and bridges.

In his work, Anatoly Marienhof captured the image of the early-20th-century Penza. In his fiction and memoirs, he often wrote about his friends. He was a man of exceptional culture and knowledge. Among his acquaintances were famous personalities such as Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergey Obraztsov, Vasily Kachalov, Boris Eikhenbaum, Alexander Tairov, and others.

In 1928, Anatoly Marienhof moved to Leningrad together with his wife, Anna Borisovna Nikritina, who was offered a job at the Bolshoi Drama Theater. He spent the rest of his life there. He called himself a Penza man until the end of his days. He knew Penza, remembered the city, and loved it deeply. His novels were imbued with impressions of Penza — the smell of linden and lilac in the Upper Park, the Indian summer in the cathedral square, and panoramic views of old Penza from Popov Mountain.