The portrait of Matvey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol was added to the museum’s collection in 1969. It was painted by the artist Yevgeny Uspensky by order of the Yalutorovsk Museum for display in the memorial house of M.I. Muravyov-Apostol. Uspensky painted the portrait of the Decembrist from watercolors of the engraver Nikolai Utkin, who was famous in the period between 1823-1824. Nikolai Utkin was the illegitimate son of Count Muravyov and the half-cousin of Matvey and Sergey Muravyov-Apostol.
Decembrist Matvey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol is a retired lieutenant colonel, one of the founders of the Union of Salvation, member of the Union of Welfare, the Southern Society, a participant in the uprising of the Chernigov regiment, brother of the executed Decembrist Sergei Muravyov-Apostol. For Matvey Muravyov-Apostol, the sentence of the court meant 20 years of hard labor with the deprivation of all ranks and titles of nobility. First, he was exiled to Vilyuisk, after which he was transferred to the Bukhtarma fortress, now in the Omsk region. In 1836 the Decembrist moved to Yalutorovsk and remained there for 20 years.
He came from the fortress, being married to Maria Konstantinovna, the daughter of a priest. The couple bought the house of the merchant Belousov where they lived until the amnesty. Their son died in infancy and they never had another child. In Yalutorovsk, the Muravyov-Apostols couple raised two adopted children. First, the orphaned four-year-old Avgusta Sozonovich was sheltered, and then the priest brought Anna Borodinskaya who was abandoned on a church doorstep. The girls were brought up as aristocrats: not only according to the noble etiquette, they instilled in them the rules of good manners, but taught them to read and write, foreign languages, and music. The house of the Muravyov-Apostols in Yalutorovsk attracted the attention of local nobility with its comfort, cleanliness and hospitality. Their estate included numerous outbuildings. After their amnesty in 1856, the family moved to Tver. Matvey Muravyov-Apostol lived to be 93 years old. At an old age, he was unable to walk and lost his eyesight. Avgusta Sozonovich took care of him: every day she took the blind, aged Decembrist for walks in his wheelchair, read aloud for long periods of time, wrote down his memories. After the death of Muravyov-Apostol in 1886, Sozonovich built a family crypt at the Novodevichy cemetery, where he rests to this day.
Decembrist Matvey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol is a retired lieutenant colonel, one of the founders of the Union of Salvation, member of the Union of Welfare, the Southern Society, a participant in the uprising of the Chernigov regiment, brother of the executed Decembrist Sergei Muravyov-Apostol. For Matvey Muravyov-Apostol, the sentence of the court meant 20 years of hard labor with the deprivation of all ranks and titles of nobility. First, he was exiled to Vilyuisk, after which he was transferred to the Bukhtarma fortress, now in the Omsk region. In 1836 the Decembrist moved to Yalutorovsk and remained there for 20 years.
He came from the fortress, being married to Maria Konstantinovna, the daughter of a priest. The couple bought the house of the merchant Belousov where they lived until the amnesty. Their son died in infancy and they never had another child. In Yalutorovsk, the Muravyov-Apostols couple raised two adopted children. First, the orphaned four-year-old Avgusta Sozonovich was sheltered, and then the priest brought Anna Borodinskaya who was abandoned on a church doorstep. The girls were brought up as aristocrats: not only according to the noble etiquette, they instilled in them the rules of good manners, but taught them to read and write, foreign languages, and music. The house of the Muravyov-Apostols in Yalutorovsk attracted the attention of local nobility with its comfort, cleanliness and hospitality. Their estate included numerous outbuildings. After their amnesty in 1856, the family moved to Tver. Matvey Muravyov-Apostol lived to be 93 years old. At an old age, he was unable to walk and lost his eyesight. Avgusta Sozonovich took care of him: every day she took the blind, aged Decembrist for walks in his wheelchair, read aloud for long periods of time, wrote down his memories. After the death of Muravyov-Apostol in 1886, Sozonovich built a family crypt at the Novodevichy cemetery, where he rests to this day.
