In Nashchokinsky Lane, the Bulgakovs occupied a three-room apartment. One room was a dining room, to the left of it was the room of Elena Bulgakova’s son Sergei, and the door on the right led through the dining room to Bulgakov’s office.

In the dining room there was a wardrobe, a round dining table, chairs, an armchair, and on October 20, 1934, a grand piano was added to the room. Mikhail Bulgakov was a big fan of opera and played a little himself. Lyubov Belozerskaya, the writer’s second wife, recalled how, when they first met, Bulgakov hummed an Italian romance and played a waltz from the opera “Faust”.

In Mikhail Bulgakov’s archive, there is a sheet with notes of a polka composed by the musician and conductor Isaak Osipovich Dunayevsky. On October 7, 1938, Elena Bulgakova noted,

The composer and pianist Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich also visited the Bulgakovs. He played a polka and a waltz from his ballet “The Limpid Stream”. Alexander Melik-Pashayev, the composer and conductor of the Bolshoi Theater, as well as other guests of the writer, also liked to play the piano.