Today we got to see apartment No. 50 on Sadovaya Street.
the door to the not-good apartment
This is where author Mikhail Bulgakov lived, and a very important place in his novel The Master and Margarita. The devil and his entourage take over the apartment, which already has a reputation as a place from which people disappear, and make its reputation even stranger by using it as their headquarters for spreading chaos in Moscow. The author refers to No. 50 as the nekhoroshaya kvartira, or the not-good apartment.
Gretchen and I standing in No. 50’s stairwell. Thanks to our praktikantka Olya for taking the photo!
The graffiti that covers the stairwell’s walls shows the deep connection that people have with this place, with Bulgakov, and with The Master and Margarita. You can see several versions of each of the main characters, quotes from the novel in Russian and in English…
Woland
A version of Queen Margarita
Behemoth getting on the tram
Natasha and Nikolai Ivanovich
portraits of Bulgakov…
plus your typical “I was here” graffiti. Stepping inside the stairwell gave me the feeling that I was in a special place.
Before even entering the apartment itself, I felt just how loved No. 50 on Sadovaya Street has become.