Given the current interest in Pushkin and the scarcity of individuals who knew personally the luminary of Russian literature, the great poet, I felt compelled to share a few recollections from my time with him. In 1836, three months prior to his passing, during the month of September, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, accompanied by his wife Natalia Nikolayevna, visited the Academy for our annual September exhibition. Upon hearing that Pushkin had come to the Antique Gallery, we, the students of the academy and young artists, rushed to greet him there. We found him standing with his wife, viewing a painting by the renowned landscape artist Lebedev. Pushkin was admiring the artwork. Our Academy inspector, Krutov, who was accompanying him, was searching for Lebedev to introduce him to Pushkin. However, Lebedev was not there, and when Krutov saw me, he took my hand and introduced me to Pushkin as a student who had recently received a gold medal (I was graduating from the Academy at the time). Pushkin greeted me warmly and asked to see my paintings. I pointed them out. As I recall those were two canvases, ‘Clouds from the Oranienbaum Coast’ and ‘A Group of Finnic people on the Shore of the Gulf of Finland.’ Upon learning that I was from Crimea, the great poet asked me about my hometown, whether I had been in St. Petersburg for a long time, if I was homesick and if I got sick often in the northern climate. At that point, I took a good look at Pushkin and I still remember the outfit of the beautiful Natalia Nikolayevna. The poet’s beloved wife was wearing a black velvet dress, a bodice tied with black ribbons and real lace, a large straw hat adorned with an ostrich feather, and long white gloves. We, the students, accompanied the distinguished guests to the entrance. Since that day, the poet who had already captured my heart became the focus of my thoughts, the source of inspiration, and the subject of long conversations and inquiries about him…