Sergei Tkachyov finished ‘Ovstug (Our Childhood School)’ in 1998. For the painting, he worked in oil on cardboard. The artist depicts Ovstug’s first school building, which today is part of a museum. The artist captures the building on a clear spring day. He chose an unusual angle a view: the former school is nestled on the edge of a forest overgrown with slender trees.

The school was built in the 19th century, opposite the entrance to Fyodor Tyutchev’s estate, as a house for the estate manager. In the early 1870’s, the poet’s daughter, Maria Birilieva, decided to turn the building into a school for peasant children.

She observed the village’s life with a great deal of sympathy, writing to her father to explain that life was difficult for the peasants there, and that the local priest had taken to drink and could no longer teach the children to read and write. She therefore donated her own money to repair the building. Archives of her documents show the following:

Fyodor Tyutchev supported his daughter’s undertaking, and gave the school a tithe of the estate for free. He also made sure that the school had enough firewood. In 1871, the school opened its doors to the local peasant children.

In Soviet times, the school became a secondary school. The school is also linked to the name of another remarkable figure - Vladimir Gamolin. He arrived in Ovstug in 1955 to teach children Russian language and literature. In January 1957 he opened a small museum about Fyodor Tyutchev in the building. Vladimir Gamolin painstakingly gathered the materials and exhibits for the museum, studying the history and construction of the estate.

Every year during the school’s holidays, he left to work in the archives in Moscow and Leningrad. The museum’s exhibition constantly developed, and when the flow of visitors increase, the authorities took the decision to build a new building for the school, and turn the whole original building into the museum. After the reconstruction of the Tyutchev estate, the museum moved into the main house, and the former school became an art gallery.