Communists tend to get a bad rep on our side of the world, possibly because they don’t photograph well, or they tend to shy away from platforms like Facebook. In Russia, however, it’s a whole other story. And Moscow in particular hits the sweet spot between great vodka, literature and Communism.
Start with Anton Chekhov, for instance, whose plays like The Sea Gull and The Cherry Orchard were steeped in ideas of Marxism and Communism, and whose home from 1886-1890 is carefully preserved as a museum close to the center of the city. Chock-full of his personal possessions, it welcomes visitors for a ridiculously cheap sum that should warm the heart of any Communist tourist.
Not too far away stands the home of a writer heavily favored by Stalin himself, Mikhail Bulgakov. What makes Bulgakov House so special is the role it occupies, along with locations around it, in his classic novel The Master And Margarita. If you’re lucky, you might run into a celebrity here, given the writer’s enduring popularity with everyone from Mick Jagger to Daniel Radcliffe.
If it’s atmosphere you’re after, nothing beats the charming home of Nobel winner and Communist supporter turned-critic and poet Boris Pasternak, a 20-minute train ride from Moscow. But the capital itself deserves more than just a cursory visit: See the last home of Nikolai Gogol, pay homage to both him and Chekhov at the Novodevichy Cemetery and visit the apartment where Dostoevsky wrote Crime And Punishment.
