The box is made in the traditional papier-mache technique and coated with gold lacquer. The lid is decorated with a painting of flying cranes. It belonged to the director’s mother, YUlia Eisenstein née KonEtskaya. In this box, she kept locks of her son’s baby hair and his first baby photo. Judging by the size and the round shape of the photo, it had been cased in a medallion, which is now missing. The photo is exhibited next to the box.
The folder ladanka (an orthodox amulet with frankincense kept inside), made of copper alloy with traces of silver, perhaps, also belonged to Sergei Eisenstein’s mother or grandmother Iraida Kontskaya. The left side of the ladanka has an engraved episode of St. Prokhor writing at the dictation of John the Theologian. The right side depicts Matthew the Apostle sitting with an open book in his hands. The names (John and Matthew) coincide with the names of Yulia Konetskaya’s parternal and maternal grandfathers. Yulia’s father came from the rich merchant family of Konetskys, owners of the Nevsky Barge Shipping Company. The Konetskys came from northern Russia, Novgorod and Arkhangelsk. Having settled in St. Petersburg and became rich, the family generously donated for the needs of the church, the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
The Film Museum has another childhood photo of Sergei Eisenstein on display. It features the future director with his bike. The photo was taken shortly before the break-up of his parents. MikhaIl and Yulia Eisenstein split up in 1909.
The folder ladanka (an orthodox amulet with frankincense kept inside), made of copper alloy with traces of silver, perhaps, also belonged to Sergei Eisenstein’s mother or grandmother Iraida Kontskaya. The left side of the ladanka has an engraved episode of St. Prokhor writing at the dictation of John the Theologian. The right side depicts Matthew the Apostle sitting with an open book in his hands. The names (John and Matthew) coincide with the names of Yulia Konetskaya’s parternal and maternal grandfathers. Yulia’s father came from the rich merchant family of Konetskys, owners of the Nevsky Barge Shipping Company. The Konetskys came from northern Russia, Novgorod and Arkhangelsk. Having settled in St. Petersburg and became rich, the family generously donated for the needs of the church, the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
The Film Museum has another childhood photo of Sergei Eisenstein on display. It features the future director with his bike. The photo was taken shortly before the break-up of his parents. MikhaIl and Yulia Eisenstein split up in 1909.
Yulia Eisenstein moved to Petrograd, Rorik (childhood nickname of Sergei Eisenstein) stayed with his father in Riga. Their house was deserted, figuratively and literally, as the furniture was mostly the dowry of the mother. In 1912, the Synod officially legitimized the Eisensteins' divorce. This photo of her ten-year-old son was Yulia Konetskaya’s favorite photo, according to her coevals, and she hung it in the rosewood frame in her St. Petersburg apartment on TavrIcheskaya Street. The exposition displays a copy of the photo. The original is kept in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art. In 1915 Sergei Eisenstein from Riga to Petrograd to stay at his mother’s house and enrolled in the Institute of Civil Engineers, where he studied until the civil war of 1918.
