A museum dedicated to Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky opened in the village of Norenskaya in the far north of Russia on Wednesday, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The museum in the Arkhangelsk region is located in a cottage on the spot where Brodsky lived while serving a sentence of five years' hard labor in the mid-1960s after he was sentenced for social parasitism.
Brodsky's poetry was denounced as "pornographic and anti-Soviet" in 1963 and he was sentenced in a famous trial that made him a cause celebre in the West.
After being found guilty, Brodsky spent 18 months in Norenskaya between March 1964 and September 1965. He wrote 80 poems during his time there. His sentence was commuted in 1965 and he left Norenskaya.
Two years ago the local governor Igor Orlov vowed to have the house fixed up, said the region's press service, RIA Novosti reported. The work cost 4.5 million rubles ($84,000) and was funded by two businessman and not the local government.
The cottage was in such disrepair that it was knocked down and replaced with a similar cottage found nearby.
The museum will make Norenskaya a place of pilgrimage for Brodsky lovers from different countries, schoolchildren and university students, said the press service.
Brodsky left the Soviet Union in 1972 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 for his "clarity of thought and poetic intensity." He settled in the United States and died in 1996, aged 55.
Brodsky's flat in his hometown of St. Petersburg, then Leningrad, is set to become a museum later this year.
A Message from The Moscow Times:
Dear readers,
We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."
These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.
By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.
Remind me later.
