Maxim Gorky’s summer coat is made of dense silk fabric with no lining according to the fashion of the 1920s–1930s. Gorky spent 18 years in Europe and became a true connoisseur of fashion and high-quality clothing. The idea of Russian people all wearing the same standard clothes in an effort to fit in with the crowd felt strange to him. In turn, individuality was not welcome in the young Soviet country that embraced the ideology of collectivism.

In August 1928, Maxim Gorky came to Kazan from Sorrento, Italy. He was wearing this light-colored coat, which was later donated to the museum by the writer’s relatives. Gorky visited the memorable places of his youth and important city institutions in Kazan, including the Kazan University, the House of Tatar Culture, the National Museum, the university preparatory school for farmworkers, and the Vladimir Lenin Clinical Institute. Numerous photographs taken during that time show a sharp contrast between the writer’s flamboyant style and the modest clothes of Soviet citizens.

Clothes were used to highlight a person’s status, and Gorky managed to create his own distinctive style, which was equally appreciated by both proletarians and dandies. When he was younger, he wore simple peasant kosovorotka shirts, but over time he developed a taste for colored silk shirts, leather boots and long coats. The Russian writer Ivan Bunin described the young Gorky with the following words,